Toil Until the Old Colours Fade
by drcalvin
Summary: Javert drowns in the river and wakes up the next morning in 1820, having just moved to M-sur-M. He discover that if he dies again, through suicide or accident, his timeline always resets to that point. How long will it take him to learn to live? To change? To stop pining for M. Madeleine...? [Groundhog Day/Purgatory fic]
1. Hope twisted and dried

**Title**: Toil Until the Old Colours Fade

**Pairing**: (eventually) Javert/Jean Valjean

**Status**: Finished

**Summary**: After his leap into the Seine, Javert finds himself back in Montreuil-sur-Mer on the morning of his first appointment with M. Madeleine. He soon discovers that while his choices can change the outcome of things, nothing can stop death from delivering him back to that same morning.  
Now he has to defeat the game of fate or keep returning to 1820, eternally dying without finding peace.

**Content notes**: Groundhog Day / Time Loop, Temporary Character Death, Suicide, Purgatory

**Rating**: Mature

**Disclaimer**: Of course none of the characters are mine :D This fic is heavily set in the 2012 movie-verse, with additional inspiration from Victor Hugo's amazing book.

**Acknowledgements**: The cover image to this fic was made by the talented _hobbitbuttocks _(you can find more of their lovely art on Tumblr)! I wish to extend the greatest thanks to my betas, _voksen_ and _morgan_, who made this story so much better than it would've been otherwise!

This fic was originally posted on the Les Mis Kinkmeme

* * *

**The fourth time**

He woke up with a gasp, the waters of the Seine rushing through his dreams. A chill that would not release him, just as the coils of time refused him freedom from this wretched life.

Dully, Javert noticed how crisp his old uniform was on its hanger. Readied for yet another first day as inspector of Montreuil-sur-Mer. Here, his nightstick leaned against the bed, always within reach. There waited his hat, his shaving kit, the shirt he had bought before leaving Paris.

In the coat was the letter with his credentials, left-side pocket, waiting to be presented to his new superior. Again.

The inn's room was austere, but clean. The first time Javert arrived, he had suspected that the local constabulary had forewarned the innkeepers of the new inspector's tastes. After a few weeks, when he had examined all hostelries and most public houses in Montreuil-sur-Mer and seen the wholesomeness of many buildings and the well-kept roads, he had revised his opinion. This one town was elevating itself to a higher standard and he had been pleased to do his part to help order and common decency win ground in this corner of France.

During that very first morning, he had not known _his_ true face, hadn't yet met the saint in a devil's disguise. Though it had not been much of a disguise, had it? A devil who hoodwinked only the law, in its incarnation as a foolish jailer and policeman grown old before his years. Certainly the citizens of the town would have happily worshipped their Monsieur le Maire, was he not too humble a Christian to accept their accolades.

Closing his eyes, Javert tried to relax back onto the rustling linens, unwilling to face this day again. But the walls of the room seemed to shrink around him, an ever-tightening snare wrapped around his soul. The lavender scent wafting from the sheets, the hint of salt always in the air and the maid humming her infuriating, unchangeable tune as she passed his room with two pails of water clunking against her legs... Another morning, another nightmare. He forced away the memory of vertigo, before his soul sank into the rapids of despair.

He was so weary of this room, this morning.

The first time, years ago, he had not reflected on it in any great measure. A new post might unsettle another man, but to Javert each assignment was as another. Justice was the same everywhere, and he went where the law willed, satisfied in doing his duty.

Memories had faded over time, but there had been plenty of occasions for him to attempt to recall the details. That first morning, Javert believed he had risen at his accustomed time. Had washed and dressed – fresh shirt, clean coat, brushed hat – then taken a light breakfast.

Observing the town around him, he had gathered the troop which had arrived with him the night before, and they had all made their introductions at the Administration Centrale for Montreuil-sur-Mer. He greeted the local men he would lead and was guided through the offices, the cells, the interrogation rooms.

Javert had been satisfied with the routines and sense of order, if not overly impressed with the state of discipline. Had continued on a wider tour through the areas of the town most likely to need the firm hand of the constabulary; ridden past the docks, seen the gates and noted each guard. They had ended their ride at one of the factories owned by the mayor, and there Javert had encountered _him_. The exalted M. Madeleine, benefactor and ruler of this little hamlet.

Javert had presented his papers; they had exchanged polite words. Despite the niggle of recognition, he could never have dreamed that this short meeting spelled his doom.

The second time had been, as far as his own memory was concerned, only a few months ago. He had washed and dressed mechanically, a puppet in the hands of fate. He had cleaned and loaded his gun despite its already spotless state, then left. Had walked out without breakfast or notifying his men, driven to his task like the monstrous Golem of the story.

Because in the night before, in a night years ahead of this morning, Javert had ended himself. Caught between grace and duty, choosing the first over the second for the only in his life, he had failed and broken the laws of heaven.

And had awoken here, in Montreuil-sur-Mer. If this was where God's hand placed him, here at the beginning of his long, slow fall into damnation, how else should he take the judgement? Failure could not be forgotten. Disgrace stained forever. And yet, some silent judge had given him one more opportunity to set things Right, to let law rule where mercy had failed. And so Javert took up his gun and went to right his final mistake.

A knock on the door, a pointless greeting called. Familiar eyes widening in recognition, a mouth opening – the word never spoken.

One bullet between the eyes, and Monsieur le Maire was no more.

Javert could have attempted to explain himself. He could have revealed the brand and pulled attention to the manacle scars. But he choose silence. The explanations were ash in his mouth, the sunlight too dirty, as if it had all been drenched in the filthy waters of the river.

Two days later, mind still numb from betrayal and failure, former inspector Javert was led to the guillotine in front of a hungry crowd. He heard the rapids rushing loud in their jeers when his verdict was read aloud and when he laid his head on the block, felt the straps tightening around his body, he knew nothing but relief at the approaching dark.

The third time Javert woke to this damned morning, it was with a choked-off scream and the sound of the death's heavy thud echoing in his ears. His neck burned like fire, his mouth gasped for impossible air, and his hands shook when he finally touched the unbroken skin of his throat. Dimly, he thought to recall the water freezing his sundered self together, before the stream swept him back to this beginning once again.

He had kept his silence then, feeling as if a thousand unseen eyes saw the brands of death upon him when he walked through the town. Silent judgement from the marble saints above the church door, old rain carving grey tears on cold faces; mockery in the imbecile grin of the boar painted by the public house and taunts in the cloudy eyes of a stinking beggar blocking his way.

Javert had barely spoken barely the entire day. Handed handed over his letters with the minimal amount of words required. He went on patrol like an automaton, feet taking him through foetid alleys and past suspicious hovels he was not meant to know about yet.

When dawn arrived, his mouth was parched. But all water carried the taint of filth and sand, as if he drank the effluences of the million souls of great Paris. In every drop of wine, he tasted the blood of misguided children dead before their time. The red of their wasted lives lingered on the streets of his mind; the streets where harsh words had been spoken by a man who understood nothing and judged on hollow grounds. They had all drowned in the end, silly boys who played at rebellion, and were swept away from their familiar cobblestones by the red waves – only he lived on, to regret his thoughtless condemnations.

He kept his silence. He ate little, but did his work and that night, his dreams were were empty with exhaustion. Nights rolled into days; duty was endless, silence was rare, and the winter grew longer than in his memory.

Perhaps, Javert had thought then, this was what the accursed town wished from him. Perhaps it had pulled the rot from Valjean's soul, had left him pure and holy at the price of one failed policeman's imprisonment.

Might he be allowed to pay off this debt?

The numbness gradually dispersed as he did his work, the rushing of the rapids growing dimmer with every smile Monsieur le Maire showed him. The suffocating weight that had choked him since the night of the barricades began to diminish while he laboured and struggled. For the first time, he tried to dispense justice and mercy with an even hand.

If he was perhaps not yet eternally damned, might he be on trial in the grand court above? Had his suicide been forgiven, insofar that he was allowed to navigate the paths of purgatory? For his true hell, Javert knew with the certainty of the lonely child who had wept in the the darkness, would be eternal rebirth in the dungeons of his youth. Much as he had come to hate the room and the city alike, there were yet depths of misery he had not been forced to relive.

Then came the night where he went ahead to stop a robbery turned murder. An old watchmaker working late, beaten to death by the brute (convict) whom Javert had collared two lifetimes ago.

Save a life where he could. Bring a criminal who would murder an old man to justice; for once, his duty and burden alike were easy to satisfy.

Too many nights on patrol, perhaps. Too many dreams of rushing water, too many doubts still weighing him down. Underestimating the loyalty of an old con, too, who had carried his silence into the grave. Because a companion appeared behind Javert, a man hidden from the law in all preceding lives. A knife, a moment of fire between his ribs, and he was drowning again. Drowning in red heat, his temper flaring even as his own pistol roared.

There was a grim satisfaction in knowing that the old watchmaker would live, even as Javert choked on the iron of his own lifeblood, hearing the alarm raised too late On the great clock above him, gilded and severe, the likeness of St. Maurice watched his passing. For the first time since he had abandoned duty in the face of wracking doubt, he thought he saw a hint of compassion in the blank eyes. Then the shadows pulled him down and he prayed that this time, the darkness would be eternal.

But he had woken once more, in this thrice-damned bed, on this thrice-damned morning and he did not know if he could face this day again.

Guidance, he prayed, my Lord in heaven, give me but one sign to follow! Let me know your will through one word and I shall obey, but do not abandon me to this morning for an eternity, or I must surely break apart.

When Javert finally emerged from his room, only his closest superiors would have noticed anything amiss. The hour was later than the one he usually rose at, but not by too much. The uniform was spotless, his eyes were hard and if he turned to answer questions almost before they were asked, what of it? The Inspector was an observant man, his men would say, quick to react and difficult to rattle.

Once again, Javert followed his guide: through the depths of the department building, across the streets of Montreuil-sur-Mer, past its dilapidated harbour – their benefactor, their blessing, Monsieur Madeleine had not yet had time to spread his wealth and wisdom over it, his guide informed him, but it was but a matter of time – feeling half adream until his horse carried him towards the factory area.

He found himself slowing down, strange fancies making him fumble with the reins. There was money in his pocket, there was a good horse to his name. Who would miss him if he left? This damned city, this sinful folk? A lifetime in the New World, a passage on the first, ship wherever it might take him... would that not be enough, to forget and escape?

As if his mount could feel his thoughts, it snorted and danced beneath him, and he was brought back to the moment. No. Javert was many shameful things, but coward he would never become. His destiny might be stuck here in Montreuil-sur-Mer, but he would rather die a thousand deaths before he tried to run from it like a whipped dog.

Instead, Javert dismounted and handed the reins to the closest man, barely remembering to give the order for his troop to remain behind.

He came somewhat later, this time, and so he saw a young woman thrown from the factory, her pink dress a wilting flower on the muddy pavement. Even so, he almost missed the meaning of this moment, thoughts turned inwards. There was his ignorant assumption, too, that she was in her right place. Anyone thrown from that holy fool's premises must have earned it badly.

She was was whimpering, praying perhaps, and he sidestepped her without slowing his stride.

Perhaps the saints had heard his silent plea that morning. Perhaps the fates occasionally pitied even blind policemen. For something drew his attention – her voice, her fine long hair, or the claw-like hand digging in the dirt for a single coin – and he turned, looked down and finally _saw._

A moment cold as the river, then the light that had been denied him flared within his mind.

Not the mayor, not the town? Could it be? The abyss drowning his soul, was it because of the woman and the girl?

"Mademoiselle, are you in need of assistance?" He crouched and offered her his hand, tried to display whatever comfort he might still have to spare.

Her dark eyes were wide with fright, but in her answer, spoken through half-clenched teeth, he heard the anger hidden in her. Pride, she had; pride and a temper ready to ignite like phosphorus. This was what would bring her to Javert's attention in about a year and propel her into Monsieur le Maire's gentler hands.

Anger or no, her voice was full of fear, the explanation disjointed and hesitant. Kindness did not come easy to him, nor did patience. Rather than ruin everything, he sent her away before either ran out, first making sure that she had money in her pocket and her ears full of trite reassurances.

It took but a moment to distract old Fauchelevent, for he wanted no disturbances during the coming discussion. When the cart broke, it fell harmlessly in the mud and Javert left the unfortunate man behind, thinking that he was lucky to bemoan the loss of money so loudly.

Then he was walking up the stairs, a thrum of excitement rising inside; the allure of the game returning after too long a time.

The woman. The child. The convict beneath the mayor's mask. Which one of them could it be, which one responsible for his fate? He did not know, but it felt as if his instincts had finally woken up, after months of staggering through despair.

It was obvious to him now; if his mistake had only concerned Valjean, why should he be brought back so far? The town, he had believed, the people cursing him for the loss of their beloved Madeleine... but did not all men curse the death of a gentle master? Would not every able king, every beloved commander be immortal in that case? No, the begging of the crowd went unheard in this world and all others. One particular voice, it must have been; one perpetrator who chained Javert to life.

And if her salvation was the price? If coddling that weak soul, holding her back from the fall, was all the payment needed to escape those dreams of rushing waters? Then by God, salvation she would have! He would hunt down the solution that fate demanded, even if he had to cram grace down their throats until they all choked!

A sharp rap on the door, a call of welcome. He schooled his features and opened the door.

"Greetings, Monsieur le Maire," he said. "Please, know me as Inspector Javert." One small moment of amusement at the tension that made those broad shoulders hunch, the stillness of the prey who feared discovery. Surely, that little thing could not be denied him?

He handed over the letter, repeated the phrases he must speak, observed. There, that movement was the old con, the mask not so much cracking as shifting to show the truth beneath. But the voice was all M. Madeleine, and the smile was far too gentle to ever have been worn in Toulon.

What, Javert found himself wondering for the first time, had turned the beast into a man? Where originated the wellspring of his kindness?

"Ah, before I take my leave... If I may ask for another moment of your time, Monsieur le Maire?"

"Of course, Inspector, whatever you may need. We both work for the improvement of this town, after all."

"Yes," he replied, pushing down the vision of making the entire damned hovel sink into the sea, "so we do. Monsieur, I met a woman outside your door. Her plight touched me, for she had been turned out from your factory on what appears to have been one man's whim."

The satisfaction of making Jean Valjean's features twist with shock was almost worth the river.

"I beg your pardon, Inspector?"

"The cause was a petty man, a lustful creature, who took revenge when he had the opportunity." He did not need to feign the disgust that coloured his voice now. Though Valjean had never noticed, Javert had seen the foreman among the fallen women often enough to recognize his type. "For a youthful mistake that left her burdened with a child she was fired from your factory. It happened just now. Without references her prospects seem faint. One might ask if the punishment of ruin is equal to the weight of her crime?"

Valjean was still gaping at him, forgetting that he was supposed to play a cultured gentleman.

"You pity her, Inspector?"

He spread his hands diffidently, offering neither denial nor confirmation. "As a man of the law, my main concern lies in the formalities. Whatever the woman's fault, she deserves to have her cause heard properly, her offence judged fairly."

There was a choked sound that might have indicated curiosity. He hoped it was not the sound of shock tearing open a blood vessel in Valjean's head; that would be inconvenient. But this charade had gone on for long enough, and the next words, he spoke with true conviction.

"The law is greater than the sum of its parts, Monsieur le Maire, and on occasion, justice must rise above its written rules. I believe you know this as well? After all, only the ignorant and the foolish would confuse God's justice with the actions of those who enforce and shape man's justice; policeman and magistrate alike, mere mortals as well, and thus as fallible as all men ." He waited a beat, but though Javert could see that he had his listener's rapt attention, there seemed to be no understanding in him.

"While I am certain that the regulations of this factory were written with the best intentions, your foreman is neither fair nor just; that much has been revealed even to a newcomer such as myself. And so I humbly ask you, Monsieur le Maire, to consider what might make your reputation suffer worse: a minor quarrel on the factory floor, or the fact that even the lowest patrolman is happy to tell any new arrival that your foreman frequently 'samples' the young women who walk through your door?"

Javert fell silent, unsure of how to go on; he dared not plead his case further. If he spoke more, there was a real chance that he would reveal the disdain he still felt for that weak creature who seemed to have trapped him in this cycle of repeated death. Nor did the mayor speak yet; he merely shook his head slowly, confusion written large in his face.

Had Javert's plea rung too false, after all? Or had the turning of the lifetimes changed this man: was too much of the old thief still alive in the mayor at this time?

Then Monsieur le Maire grasped his hand, and spoke his name with a new warmth in his voice. And Javert saw that the smile blooming on his face was the smile of Jean Valjean, and for a moment the two were one and the same.

* * *

**The seventh time**

For the first time on this morning, he woke to confusion as to how he had arrived. For several heartbeats, Javert lay disoriented in his bed and listened to the river of his nightmares rush around him.

The scent of lavender surrounded him, rising from the sheets. The maid, her buckets sounding like the tolling of the bell of doom, ringing out his judgement. No reprieve, no rest, nothing but failure and failure again.

He could at first not remember how he had died. Then images appeared; a horse startling, a great rumble and the crushing weight upon his back...

Where had he erred this time?

When Javert rose, the shadows of deaths seemed to weigh him down in body as well as soul. The water battering him was always there, on every step of his road. The pain in his neck, the blade in his side and the way his arm, jaw and skull felt when crushed beneath heavy blows – those were almost familiar now.

The memory of a growing shortness of his breath... Phantom coughs which plagued him if he reflected on the sound of his breathing too much. That had been a death to fear; the mere memory made his heart race with terror. The thin line of fire where Madame Guillotine had tapped him once was nothing in comparison.

Never one too impressed by fainting poets and limp artists, Javert had seen enough victims dragged to a choking, gasping death, that he had chosen a faster escape once it became clear that the White Plague held him. Whatever destiny awaited him in the final world, it was not to waste away in Montreuil-sur-Mer's hospital a mere three years after being assigned to the city.

Seeing the woman reinstated to her old position while the foreman was chastised and moved to a factory staffed by men, his despair had faded. In due time, the daughter arrived. She visited with her mother, seemed happy enough when Javert spotted her, and soon left for a convent school on Monsieur le Maire's expense. He dared hope for deliverance.

For a year, his dreams were empty of terrors and he managed to fill his days with work.

After his "mercy" had been revealed to Madeleine, the man's fear of discovery seemed to diminish. They carefully navigated the reefs of small talk, and slowly, Madeline began asking Javert's counsel. His own opinions too were shared more openly than before. Despite the secrets they both kept, Javert found that their professional co-operation ran smoother than the first time he had been in Montreuil-sur-Mer. Things seemed good.

But when the year turned, the winds changed. The wintry barrage of the river against the old pier became the roaring of the Seine beneath his feet, a red shawl glimpsed became a flag in the hand of a dead youth, and his nights turned restless and cold.

The persistent cough began at the height of summer. As the days grew shorter, he felt his strength slowly leech away. Monsieur le Maire began insisting that he come over for some hearty food and take more rest.

Javert refused to admit the truth to himself, until a coughing fit overcame him in the street; intense enough to bend his body with steel bands of pain, it could not be ignored. He was forced to accept a helping hand – that, or seek support against the dirty factory wall and like as not slide down into the gutter. Finally regaining control, though he was still gasping for air, Javert turned and met the mayor's worried countenance. Though his eyes remained kind, they were no longer surrounded by those small crinkles of amusement Javert had unconsciously come to expect. Instead, it was wholly the man of charitable duty who spoke encouragements, only that damn tireless altruist looking down at him with eyes fair shining with pity.

Perhaps his fate was to be the Sisyphus of Montreuil-sur-Mer, but pity was not something Inspector Javert would ever accept.

Allowing himself a final repast and a glass of fine wine, which tasted only faintly of blood and dreams washed up in dirty alleys, Javert spent the evening with Madeleine. When he had made his farewells, he went home and cleaned his room. He packed away his belongings and wrote a few letters of guidance, regarding the current cases he was working with. He already owned a rope and easily tied it into a noose. The rope went around a wooden beam, the chair went beneath the rope, and the noose around his neck. Efficient, he had dared hope. Permanent, he could only wish.

It had been neither.

Javert had not know it would take such very long time for the dark to come, nor that his failing spirits would rise instinctively at the threshold of death. He died disgracefully with fingers clawing at the noose, gagging for one more breath; a mindless animal at the end.

To draw breath anew after such an exit... The elation at the simple act – free, unhindered, air flowing into him, reviving healthy limbs – had quickly overcome that first moment of horror at waking through death.

His joy was short-lived, though, for a too deep breath caused him to gasp and almost cough. The waters seemed to rise around him for a moment and he thought to see a trickle of red along the floorboards. A warning or an omen? A vision of what was to come, if he did not find the right path soon?

Whatever it was, it had been too heavy-handed. Flinging the covers aside, Javert found himself near shaking with fury as he rose from the bed. How dared they! How dared any unseen power, any God or Fate above, twist him such! He was to rise again, whatever happened? He was to do his duty – though he had no map, no law to follow – or he was to suffer death and death again? And now, the Powers had not even had the decency to send a loaded gun his way, but were happy to let him wither away before his time! All for breaking an invisible edict, for failing at this enigmatic task he had been given with unspoken, unwritten orders no man could know to follow!

The girl and her mother were safe, the memory of Valjean had died and Monsieur Madeleine thrived in his place. What else could they want? Would he not be freed until he went on his knees before the throne, until the old con was pardoned under his own name?

Javert gritted his teeth to stave off the roar of fury. He had been choked for too long, his anger was boiling over, and he knew that he must act – act at once, or suffocate forever on his own hatred.

Uniform, stick, rapier. A moment to send a man with a feeble excuse to the local constabulary while he saddled his horse, and then he was thundering towards the mayor's home. How he hated that sight of that mockingly austere building, so perfectly fit for a living saint!

He banged on the door, drawing his sword with a rattle as soon as Valjean's voice made it through his fury. When he he heard the final click of the latch, he kicked the door aside and stumbled inside, cornering his prey and finally allowing himself to let his emotions run free.

"I know you!" he snarled, rage making it difficult to keep his blade still against the other's bare throat. "I know you, Jean Valjean!"

"Javert," he whispered, that thief, that miserable liar. Colour fled his face, he raised empty hands into the air, and it was a balm to hear the fear with which his name was uttered. "Javert!"

Finally, after too long a time, they were not Monsieur Madeleine and his faithful underling. Here and now remained only Valjean the Prisoner, and Javert the Law. The world was righted.

Javert was in full uniform, gloved hand clasped with painful firmness around the handle of his rapier. Valjean, in contrast, was unshaven and unarmed, only a nightgown between the blade and his skin.

Here, at least, here he still had the power! And if everything else was falling apart, if he was drowning in time itself, as long as he was a hunter with a prey, Javert would hold on.

"You can never hide from me," Javert said. He stepped closer, slowly, savouring each moment. "But this ridiculous charade? _Monsieur le Maire_, you barely even tried."

Oh, how he wanted tear apart all the things that trapped him here and none more than this man, this living mockery of every principle he had once held.

"I don't see," Valjean began, but the rapier laid against his cheek silenced him fast, and his hands trembled.

"You will run, Valjean," he mouthed; make him listen, now, make him strain and strive to understand! "You will run, and you will hide, and if you can live a long, long life in your fox-hole, then so be it. But I will not allow natural order to be further mocked! If you have any care for your sorry neck, then begone! Or I shall see you split asunder and cut down, if it so takes me five lifetimes 'fore I drive you beneath the guillotine!"

"You're not arresting me?" Valjean asked, eyes never leaving Javert, as if the thin line of red opening on his cheek was a fly he couldn't bother to swat away.

"No."

What use to attempt arrest when he had spent his entire life striving for that, and been rewarded only with this living hell?

"Then..." Valjean swallowed and lifted his head, lips pressing together to hide their tremble. "Be quick."

During the ride here, there had been no thoughts in him. He had only felt the need to take himself back – Javert, the Inspector. Javert the Hunter. But not, it appeared, Javert the Executioner.

"No," he whispered. And slowly, regretfully, Javert drew his blade back until only one scarlet line remained – a statement of all his failures.

The sword's rattle when it was returned to the scabbard, reminded him of the cough. It forced the repeated invitations from the convict, requests for them to break bread together, to the forefront of his mind.

No; not an executioner today. Not of Jean Valjean.

"I have an errand outside of town that takes priority," he said, impotent fury twisting his voice into a hateful growl. "But if you are still here, still playing at being our dear, pious Monsieur le Maire when I return in three days..."

"My presence will not darken the streets of this town again," Valjean promised, voice almost shaking. It was good to see him brought so low. It soothed Javert's confused soul to see him press white knuckles against the cut upon his cheek. The gesture did not hide the pain in his face for the city he would have to leave, the longing for the comfortable life that had been torn from his unworthy hands. It was far too good to see him so.

Javert turned on his heel, intending to leave, when a thought coming to him. "It would serve you ill to stay here, even if you wished to take your punishment as a man," he said, throwing the words over his shoulder.

"There are no men in Toulon," Valjean answered, "for it twists all who enter into beasts and rots every last bit of decency in us." Perhaps not having to face Javert had let him find his worn old whining about 'salvation' again.

"Nevertheless..."

He glanced back. Valjean had his arms crossed protectively in front of his chest, wearing that old expression of mulish righteousness, never doubting the justness of his words. How could this convict playing mayor carry on without hesitation or doubt? How could he forget the creeping wreck of 24601 and be wholly Valjean, sturdy as an old tree, with dignity in his stance despite the ridiculous old nightclothes and the greying stubble on his cheeks?

And yet, however he had transmuted himself from dross to shining silver, even Valjean was affected by the traces so many deaths had carved onto Javert's face and soul. Today, the forces haunting him must cast a dreadful shadow, for when the Inspector turned and their eyes met again, whatever Valjean saw made him grow pale and back down. As he had never done during Javert's first, true, existence.

The sight of his fear made the next words sweet to utter. "If I see you again in this life, I will shoot you like a dog."

"Then I thank you for deigning to warn me like a man!" Valjean called over the slamming of the door.

Leaving him behind, knowing that death and time would bring them together sooner than he wished, Javert turned his mind forward. Time to face that tiny soul that must be tying him to a life he had grown weary of the first time around.

He rode for Montfermeil in a thunder of hooves, leaving behind the confused cries of his men, diving into woods as if their silence was the roaring of the Seine.

Javert rode to his death, but he did it on his own terms, and the wolf's grin on his face remained during his journey. It widened when he faced the pathetic Thénardier and ignored his whimpers and his cries. It was still there when one of the drunkards tried to club him down, when Javert finally threw off all restraints and felt the blood of human filth stain his stick, his hands and his snarling mouth.

It had been a good way to die.

To his regret, the opening of his next life had been among the worst thus far. His entire body felt so broken and battered that he was forced to half roll out of bed, and staggered to the washbasin. It was uncanny how the deaths accumulated on him, old pains merging into new, though none ever eclipsed that first claustrophobic grip of the river.

It also begged the question of how much more his body could take... when would the Inspector find himself chained to a bed like the lowest convict, forced to rot away until death rolled over again, and captured him anew? It was an image of hell; not the fires of penance Javert had expected to find at the bottom of the river, but a far less dignified eternity. Equally void of hope. Perhaps, if he fell so low, he would be returned to Toulon in his soul, if not in body. Helpless like a babe, chained in darkness and filth until death threw him back to the beginning of his sentence... He shivered, fought down bile, and pushed the vision away.

To the end, he would remain himself: Inspector Javert, striving to do his duty, whatever befell him.

He had washed. Had called for a hot drink and even managed a shave. Armed himself in uniform and pushed down his lingering aches. Put on his hat, walked out into the same day and spoke the same lines, for what felt like the hundred time.

One death for his rage. Very well; it had been a fair trade with fate, but as the memory of pain showed him, it was not one he might afford too often.

Strategy, then. What, if anything, had he learned? The girl was pitiful and the innkeeper a maggot; nothing Javert wasn't already aware of and knew. Monsieur le Maire could either fear his rage, or grow to trust him by a small show of charity. His task was not to drive the man out of town. Nor, if Javert was any judge of the strange omens haunting every false step he took, should he threaten him with the law.

It had all gone wrong so quickly, he mused to himself while his feet took him through the familiar inspection of the Administration Centrale faster than his guide managed to follow.

Last time, he had received a year of peace. Something akin to a ceasefire with his old enemy. And then, overnight, it had been ruined without any conscious action of his.

Why? And if Montreuil-sur-Mer was not where Valjean was needed, why had he erred again when he forced the blasted man to escape? There was money in his coffers, enough to take him all the way to the New World or buy him a fine house in Genève or London, far beyond Javert's reach. But the sound of the river had been with him all through his ride to the Thénardier's inn. Not, he must admit, that he had felt up to the task of saving the little girl; but if fate had allowed a comforting sun to sooth the twisted shadows and quiet the river? Perhaps his rage might have faded.

And before that was his slow, drawn out death, handed him while nobody had reason to suspect that M. Madeleine had any blots on his past. Had he overlooked something with the woman and the girl after all? He could imagine nothing wrong with Fantine's daughter being schooled in a convent. Did that not serve the will of God? Fantine herself had still been working, last he saw her. Perhaps more worn from her life than a rich woman of her age, but surely the fates were not demanding that he rain down gold on every wretch around him?

The factories of Montreuil-sur-Mer had been thriving, the people grateful for their lot. As long as Javert kept his silence, their owner was safe in his seat, growing more comfortable in the mayor's post with each passing year. With no damning letter sent to Paris, Valjean need not learn of the trial which forced him to abandon the town and might well remain Madeleine for the rest of his life.

Javert halted so suddenly that the young constable walked into him, his apologies as immediate as unnecessary. He needed not have worried, because the inspector wouldn't have heard even if someone had just cursed him to hell and back.

The clouds of his mind had lifted again and he fancied that he saw a vision of a different river, a great water clear and blue, glittering in the sun. The River of Life, he thought, or perhaps the forgiving waters of the Lethe, where he would finally be able to put aside his doubts.

It had taken two painful deaths, but he had come one step closer to escaping this endless morning and the purgatory of Montreuil-sur-Mer. It was a small price to pay.

The trial of Jean Valjean!

Now, if he could only recall the name of that imbecile who had been mistaken for Valjean, he might even save him without the risk of unsettling Monsieur le Maire from his little fiefdom. The pattern was finally becoming clear: He'd save the falsely accused idiot from jail, he'd keep the major in place, the girl would grow up safely and the town's coffers remain fat and happy – oh yes, he could act the saint and loathe them in silence! To escape this damned town, these ever-appearing faces, Javert would do everything to perfect their miserable lives! Surely, the fates could demand nothing more from him?

As it turned out, they could demand that he spend a moment thinking of where he put his feet, or he would be run down on the street while he was mentally composing his letter. It had been intended for the Magistrate in Paris, containing information of a suspicious vagabond sighted near Montreuil-sur-Mer. The man would bear a great likeness to the escaped prisoner 24601. This message should have been enough to upset the trial without the mayor ever having to be disturbed, and if not enough, Javert's testimony would surely settle the matter...

He paid a heavy price for his thoughtlessness. The vehicle which crushed him was far more elaborate than the cart which had nearly killed old Fauchelevent, but that only meant that it was heavier. Javert did not need to taste the blood in his mouth to know that it was far too late for him, even before a team of his men heaved the damned thing away. He prepared to die cursing the fickle fates once more.

The honest sorrow on Monsieur le Maire's face when he arrived too late to help, too late to do anything but offer a prayer for his new inspector, was admittedly a surprise.

"Oh, don't fuss so," he growled, batting at Valjean's hand trying to press his. "I shall see you," when the darkness refuses me and I wake once again.

And here he was once more – awake on the same morning as usual, if not in the same wretched state as before. Perhaps his earlier glimpse of salvation had given him strength? Or the mindless weight of a cart did not leave the same bruises as the hateful beating at the hands of a drunken mob, for his body felt no worse with another death laid on it. Better, even, then in the life before.

His remembrances had brought him something else; the name which had so long eluded him. The man whose forgotten fate had doomed him to the creeping death of the White Plague when all else had gone so well. Champmathieu, it was, the foolish man who must not be convicted on false grounds, but whose capture must also not endanger the place of M Madeleine.

Finally, Javert had a name, a time, and a goal. Now, he needed to find a way to save the idiot. And the woman, and the child, and of course the infuriating old con himself... When this was done, Javert thought while he dressed and shaved, he hoped less for heaven's salvation than for the great black silence of the grave.

* * *

To be continued!

This fic is already finished and is currently being revised and fixed up with the help of my wonderful betas, voksen and morgan!

Feedback & concrit are always welcome.


	2. Come unto me and I will give you rest

The story goes on! Warnings for violence etc. remain.

* * *

**The seventh time, still**

It was not wholly unusual to see Inspector Javert at Monsieur le Maire's door, not even at this late hour. The citizens of Montreuil-sur-Mer had learned these last four years that where their beloved mayor was a philanthropist of the first degree, with an unwavering dedication to Christian charity and mercy, the Inspector was equally devout in justice. Both could be seen on the streets at any hour, occasionally together, though habitually on their own.

Javert's strictness had first drawn reproach from those who came to his attention. Over time his insistence on fairness for all, together with his instinct for sniffing out falsehoods, earned him a measure of respect.

When he began helping the mayor more directly with his work, the more charitably-minded citizens started greeting him. After the evening when he personally threw an officer taking bribes and 'free samples' into the river, the ladies of the night stopped hissing at his shadow. On occasion, the younger ones would even blow a kiss or greet him with some affection. Without fail, this aroused his ire, which only made them more inclined to continue their game.

A year earlier, the Inspector had made common cause with Monsieur le Maire on a larger issue. Together, against considerable protests, they had pushed through a reform of the poorhouses around Montreuil-sur-Mer. The essence of it was a substantial improvement in the conditions for these most wretched of all the needy. Now, there were still sceptics around, but most kept their grumbling to themselves; the town as whole had been won over. Once they were forced to admit that higher sanitary standards, a slight increase in food allowance, and improved education for the children of the poorest had neither brought on a tidal-wave of destitute beggars, nor emptied the cash reserves, the mayor's generous heart and the Inspector's clever mind were widely praised.

So, if the Inspector was knocking the mayor's door at three o'clock in the morning? He surely had pressing reasons.

It was Madeleine himself who opened, rubbing sleep from his eyes with a hand.

"Ah, Javert?" He yawned widely. "Pardon, but the hour... What is it? Has something happened by the factory?"

"Monsieur le Maire," Javert said and doffed his hat. "Please, let me come inside. I have a pressing need to speak to you."

Eyeing the way the Inspector twisted the hat in his hands, he nodded and allowed him to enter without further questions.

The housekeeper appeared, hastily rebuilt the fire and brought out a bottle of wine before Madeleine managed to send her back to bed, waving away all excuses regarding slowness.

As he made to pour the wine, Javert could not hold back a flinch. Giving him a measuring look, Madeleine put the wine away again, choosing not to remark on it. Instead, he excused himself and went to the kitchen, returning with a kettle and two cups.

"Since your errand does not seem to be an immediate crisis – No? Thank goodness for that. Then, I believe some hot tea will do us both good." He hid another yawn and winked at Javert. "Even in this state, I believe I shall manage to arrange something without assistance." While he prepared the tea, he kept up a steady stream of small talk, though when it became apparent that Javert was unusually disinclined to chat, he finished his task in silence.

When their refreshment was finished, Madeleine took his seat and warmed his hands on a cup. "Let us speak, then."

Mechanically, Javert took a cup as well. "Thank you. You must excuse me, Monsieur le Maire, for I scarce know how to begin... I know I am far below you in stature, but I hope that I might still call myself," he hesitated, "a trusted associate?"

"You might. As for myself, I would call you a friend," Madeleine replied.

"Then, I beg you to forgive my presumption, but I must know; what has gone wrong recently?"

"Pardon?"

"Please, Monsieur, I must know," Javert said, leaning forward and speaking with great intensity, the words suddenly rushing from him in desperation. "What has happened? What have you done? Please! Are you ill? Must you leave this city? You must tell me, because I can not fathom what has gone wrong again, or what the cause is!"

"I'm sorry, Javert, but I can't follow you at all. I am in perfect health," Madeleine said. He reached towards the other man, as if to put a hand on his forehead. "I do however admit some worry about your own state; did we not speak about your working hours a mere month ago?"

"I am not ill, nor in any other ways affected. It is, oh, never mind! Not even a blessed fool would believe me!" Javert fell back into his chair, hiding his face beneath a trembling hand. "I should never have come here. But I can not stand to begin it all again, without even understanding why!"

"What? My good man – my friend, please, I can see that you are terribly upset. What is it that has gone wrong?"

"I _do not know_! Please, Monsieur," he almost begged, "can I trust you to tell me if there is a problem in Montreuil-sur-Mer? Is the factory failing? If your health is in good order– "

"It is, it is, I am fine! And the factory is running excellently too. Calm yourself, Javert!"

"And you have received no threats? There is nothing..." Pinning the mayor with a glare, he attempted another angle. "How about your political career? I know you have been working towards further recognition so your ideas can influence a greater area. Monsieur le Maire, could you have made an enemy, could you be in danger?"

"No!" Finally, Madeleine seemed to lose his patience. "Everything is going exceptionally well! You of all people should know this! Our town prospers! The work on the hospital and our plans for modernizing the sewage system are well under way!"

When Javert seemed likely to interrupt, Madeleine silenced him with a stern look. He was now completely the Monsieur le Maire whose presence alone could sway the will of the entire town hall and whose words had begin to make an impression as far away as Paris.

"As for my forays into the higher spheres of politics, we both know that I am not about to be chosen for the parliament tomorrow! But you yourself were present when I spoke to the justices regarding a reform of the debt prison system; you saw they were willing to at least consider my proposals. I do not understand what this disaster concerns. Have _you_ received threats? Is there a silent unrest growing in our town that has somehow passed me by? What exactly is so important that it cannot wait until a more reasonable hour of the day?"

"No..." With every word Madeleine uttered, Javert's pallor increased. Finally, he nodded, defeated, and pushed away his cup. "I beg your pardon, Monsieur le Maire. I am constantly erring when it comes to matters pertaining to your person, and," he shook his head, amused at his own folly, "it seems as if even an eternity is not enough to teach me better." Rising, Javert clicked his heels together and gave a deep bow. "I apologize. I shall merely have to try again."

"Try what? Javert? Damn it, man, wait! Inspector!"

Javert was leaving, firm steps propelling him into the night faster than Madeleine could react and catch him. Reluctant to leave his home in nothing but nightclothes, he remained in the doorway until the dark shape had been swallowed by the night, after which he sighed deeply and closed the door. Tomorrow, he resolved, he would seek out Javert again and speak with him to see what tormented him so. Until then, his prayers for the man's troubled soul would have to be enough.

Unbeknownst to the mayor, Javert would continue his brisk walk throughout the night. Restless, he swept through the town from end to end until, as morning was slowly dawning, he reached the harbour.

When the warning call came, when he lifted his eyes from the dark ground and faced the full crates tumbling towards him, there was neither fear nor anticipation to be found in his face; nothing but a dreadful weariness.

* * *

**The eight time**

"I must beg your pardon, Monsieur le Maire, for disturbing you this late," Javert said the moment the door swung open before him. He stood at attention, hat clasped beneath his arm and face completely void of emotion.

"No excuses are necessary," the mayor answered, though it was clear from his simple dress that he had not planned to entertain any guests at this late hour. "You well know that I keep late hours. Is something the matter? Has something happened by the factory?"

"No, Monsieur le Maire." After a moment's hesitation, he continued. "On this occasion I do not come as your Inspector of Police, but as a man in sore need of your advice... perhaps even your charity."

"Well!" Eyebrows rising in surprise, it took Madeleine a few moments to remember his duties as a host. Coming back to himself, he stepped aside and invited Javert inside.

As his housekeeper appeared, flustered and apologetic for not being ready to greet the guest, he stopped her with a kind word and sent her back her bed.

They entered the small sitting room. Madeleine bade Javert to take a seat before tugging up his shirtsleeves and rebuilding the fire with a deft hand. While he was feeding the first flickering flames, he asked, "Do you wish –"

"No wine, Monsieur. No tea either. Please."

Once the hearth was spreading its light, Madeleine took down one of the heavy silver candlesticks that held the place of pride above the fireplace and used it to light the other candles in the room.

"I have always found that heavy matters are best discussed in brightness," he said, bringing a smaller candle to the table between them. "Now, please, unburden your heart. With God's grace, I might offer a useful perspective on your problem."

Though Javert still looked completely unaffected, his voice held none of the commanding tones the citizens of Montreuil-sur-Mer were used to hearing. Nor did he speak in the softer, almost cheerful way he occasionally used around his most trusted men or the mayor. Madeleine took note of the aberration, and his frown returned.

"I do not know where to begin, nor does it seems likely that anyone could believe me, for my tale is one of complete madness."

"Few men have reached adulthood without a few episodes which can afterwards be described as anything but madness," Madeleine offered. "I count myself among them."

"I have always strived for justice and yet..." A grin twisted his face, edging into a grimace of pain. "This problem shows me, quite clearly, how I am continuously falling short of the ideal."

"Pardon me, but I thought your difficulty was not a professional one? Not," Madeleine hurried to say, "that I am unwilling to listen, if you have a problem regarding your duties."

"It is hard to believe that a man such as myself can even have a personal problem, is it not?" Javert muttered. "In a way, you are correct. Even though the issue itself is one which haunts solely myself, the matter also connects to my duties and this town. And to yourself, sir, though the story of how that has come to pass is longer and more convoluted than the whole rest of it."

"I hope I am not guilty of giving offence? I know we have had our disagreements on everything from the proper distribution of charity to the correct design of the new hospital, but..."

"No, no, Monsieur le Maire!" Releasing one of his odd, croaking laughs, Javert hurried to interrupt him. "How could you be? You are – Monsieur, you are beyond reproach, in this matter. In all matters, for you are good." As I am not; the words might as well have been inscribed on his face.

Flustered, Madeleine fiddled with his collar. "You exaggerate, Monsieur, and if I did not know you better, I would believe you mocked me. We are but men, prone to failure even as we strive for good. And, as I recall telling you before, you undervalue yourself. In many ways, I believe that our ambitions are similar, even when we do not agree on the means."

"That is because you are not in possession of all the facts," Javert said, his tone making it clear that he had no desire to take up that old discussion again.

"If you have the impression that my own life is completely without blemish or blame, Monsieur, then it is your facts that are incomplete," Madeleine said gently.

"That is not what I believe, Monsieur. Nevertheless, it is a fact that my greatest sins begin and end with you. Oh, you need not look so upset! You were never cause, only the gravest example of my failure to see what was before me."

"I hoped I would be able to help you, because I see you are disquieted. Your words bewilder me and I find myself unable to follow the path your mind takes. Will you not tell me of this failure that you feel plagues me? I am willing to swear myself to secrecy, before God and all his saints, if you wish."

"It is not lack of trust that keeps me from speaking. It is the certainty that you cannot believe me. And even if you, by some miracle did, it has gone too far, for I can hear... Never mind; suffice to say, the next time we meet, you will have no recollection of this evening."

"Oh?" Though bemused by the cryptic talk, Madeleine's curiosity was obviously stirred. "Your words are not words I am likely to forget, Javert. Even if I were to do so, what is the harm in sharing your troubles with me?"

"If I told you, you would forget. _Your_ answers would remain with me," Javert said, making a small, dismissive gesture. "That would be unjust. I do my best to keep on the narrow path, winding as it might appear on nights like these."

"Perhaps I trust in you to keep my confidences with honour? Please, I can see that I have caused some unknown offence, but I mean no mockery with my words. While I must admit that I am becoming worried, you seem neither drunk nor feverish." Madeleine smiled, looking for a moment like a much younger man, and then admitted in a low voice, "Besides, you have quite aroused my curiosity. It is unfair to tell me of such an intriguing occurrence and then refuse me the tale itself!" He pulled his chair closer to the fire, coming nearer Javert at the same time. "Tell me, and if I mysteriously forget, you will at least have known the relief of confession."

"And if I have gone utterly mad?"

Even now, Javert sometimes wondered at how this man, with all he had gone through and all that had been done to him, could have such an easy, warming smile. He now offered Javert the full measure of it and leaning forward, clasped the inspector's arm in one of his strong, labour-roughened hands. "Then I have indulged a madman for one night and listened to a fanciful tale. What harm can it do?"

"What harm can it do..." With a tired sigh, Javert admitted defeat. "What harm can anything do, while I am trapped here? Nothing matters, nothing properly ends, and every instant is but an echo of another world." For a moment, he stared straight through Madeleine, his face as cold and judging as it had been during his years as a guard. Tonight, however, the only prisoner he judged was his own lowly soul.

"Then hear my story, Monsieur le Maire. Though you will find it impossible and mad, I beg you to let me finish it."

"I so swear," Madeleine replied.

"As far as you can remember, it has been five years since I arrived in Montreuil-sur-Mer, has it not?" He waited for Madeleine to agree, then continued. "For myself, it is closer to fifteen now, though the years have not followed one after the other as they usually do. Instead, they turn and turn, like winter hunting summer in an endless loop. And I am stuck here, reliving my mistakes over and over again!"

Slowly at first, but with increasing vigour as Madeleine remained in rapt attention, Javert told his tale. Once he had begun, it was impossible to hold back; his frustration and anger spilled out before the mayor, the entire sorry mess of it. He did not spare himself, blaming no one but his own narrow mind and stubborn pride for this life halted. He confessed longing for the death he had once tried to embrace, only to find it would not accept him.

It was not until he came to the time when he had put the hangman's noose around his own throat that Madeleine interrupted, horror clear in his voice.

"Why would you do that?" he asked, staring at Javert as if he was likely to harm himself that very second. "You are a strong man! You could well survive an illness, you could struggle through it!"

"I cannot survive, not when the illness is a punishment from above! No, Monsieur, believe me! These judges, whomever they are, have no mercy and give no pardon. Even you noticed how unnaturally fast it began, though you cannot recall. You saw how I withered away, how fast my breath began to fail! But you do not remember! And even if you did..." Javert shook his head, fists clenched white in agitation. "Nobody who has not felt it themselves could possibly understand the – the quality of doom that covers the entire world! Shadows thicken and the angles of reality warp. Food becomes ash and to drink wine is to taste a mouthful of blood. But worst of all is the sound." He gritted his teeth and squeezed his eyes closed. "Oh, Monsieur, you cannot comprehend how loud that river is! It rushes through my mind, it terrifies me to the bottom of my heart, and yet..." Javert opened his eyes slowly, seeking the others gaze, begging for understanding. "I still long for it, for the oblivion that I know awaits on the other sound of that stream. If I only knew how to reach it! This state is dreadful beyond nature and it drives me to my death. No prayer can hold it back, no curses scare it away. Believe me when I say that I have learned the futility of struggle."

Madeleine's hand was warm and his grip firm around Javert's wrist when he replied. "To struggle for life, for another _new_ tomorrow, is never wrong. If it takes you another fifteen years, fifty, my friend, I know that you will manage to free yourself."

"You believe me?" Javert looked caught between horror and joy, a state that only increased when Madeleine nodded.

"I can see that you believe, Javert, and that is enough for me tonight. If tomorrow and the days after that follow as they ought? Then we shall speak of this again, and I shall ask if you feel this doom to have lifted; if you wish to speak to a doctor or a priest. Tonight, however, I will believe you without a doubt. As long as," he added pointedly, "you remember to retain trust in yourself and your ability to free yourself from whatever devilish enchantment traps you here."

"Oh?" The sneer was old, the laughter bitter. "As you managed to escape the chain gang, with all your attempts? No, I will not be free until my jailer feels my time is up."

A gasp of perfect horror escaped him, though the hand on Javert's did not withdraw. "You know?"

Monsieur Madeleine had gone pale as a ghost, but any petty amusement Javert might have felt for scaring his former antagonist, was long washed away by the years. Especially tonight, when the shadows sang of death and the taste of river-water filled his mouth, he had no wish to see fear in another's eyes.

"I... damnation." Slowly putting his own hand above the one still resting limply against his wrist, Javert spoke in the kindest voice he could manage. "Forgive me for my idiotic words. Yes, I know who you are, Jean Valjean. But with that, I no longer mean that I know of the number once burnt into your skin. In this life, I have always known of the past. In fact, I have known in all these new lives, for I found out the first time." He swallowed down his shame, continued without taking his gaze from Madeleine's widened eyes. "Back then, that first time? Then, you did right to fear me, for I could not see further than the matter of your broken parole. In the end, I renounced you to the court, though you escaped me, then and later."

Madeleine swallowed, croaked a word, and rose suddenly, stepping away. "I need –" He opened the cupboard, took out two glasses and a dusty bottle. "Do you wish? It is not wine," he said, pouring himself a generous measure and taking a deep swallow.

Nodding his thanks, Javert poured himself some brandy and followed suit. "I am not much for strong drink, but I believe you have the right of it tonight. Please forgive me. I spoke too hastily, without thought, and I beg your pardon for this distress I have caused you," he continued, following the other man's pacing with worried eyes. "I should not allow my frustration over this situation spill over onto you. Monsieur le Maire."

Madeleine threw him a haunted look. "You would call me that, still?"

"I will be happy to call you that until I am allowed to rest in my final grave," Javert promised.

"Where did you..." He waved his empty glass in the air so that a few drops flew into the fire, making it crackle and spit. "The first time? How?"

"It was a little over a year after my arrival here," Javert said. "I had my suspicions already; pardon me, Monsieur le Maire, but for one who has seen as many convicts as myself, you still carry certain traces that are hard to mistake."

"Hah! I do, do I? That thought has occurred to me more than once. Usually when I lay awake before dawn, rehashing our latest argument – wondering if I had finally been stubborn enough to earn your enmity!" He tugged a hand through his hair, beginning to pace back and forth in agitation.

"Well, suspicion is only suspicion, and not even I would accuse a man of your standing on nothing but my instincts." He took another drink of brandy and admitted with a certain tone of shame. "Not unless I was furious for what I considered a tremendous slight. We did indeed argue one night, if one can call it that... It was about that young woman Fantine."

"Poor Fantine?" Madeleine looked worried. "Did I do her wrong again?"

"No, not at all; you were her saviour. But even if you had abused her harshly, I would scarce have cared. Monsieur, don't give me that look; I was a different man then, and would never have attempted to intercede for a woman in her position. And neither did anyone else. You recall how she was almost fired the day I arrived? Without knowledge of what was to come, I never noticed the matter. Without my informing you of the injustice done to her, she was left alone and destitute. And so, when you found her a year later, she was ruined and had become a woman of the night. Or rather, I should say when I found her; I was about to arrest her for fighting with a customer when you arrived. At that time, Fantine was dying of illness, poverty, and drink. You took her to a hospital, and though I now see that your act was fuelled by compassion, I was furious at the time."

"Why would you –"

"Because you suddenly appeared there, among all the whores and pimps of Montreuil-sur-Mer, speaking and acting like an angel on a divine mission! You took her away from a lawful arrest, in full sight of my men, and you did not even care about the humiliation you had served me. It infuriated me, that you had so blatantly ignored my authority. And for this interference to come about for someone of her standing! That night, I threw out my doubts and reported you to Paris."

"I... I believe you." Gazing into the fire, Madeleine's eyes moved as if he was seeing into a different time. "There is something about your words, a moment I can almost remember. An extra nip to the wind that night. A woman in red dress... she had lost her hair."

"She had sold it," Javert corrected.

As if his voice broke a spell, Madeleine blinked and returned to the present. "Pardon, that image was the only one that appeared. The cold, that poor young woman... You must forgive me. I can't seem to recall your presence."

"Of course not; you hardly noticed me when it happened. But this is all a trifle, now. You will forget tomorrow, or whenever this round of 'life' ends," Javert said, staring down at his hands

"Let me give you a memory then, something to remember," Madeleine offered, while filling up their glasses. "That way, if you wish to speak to me of this cycle of lives, you need not turn my hair white with terror by revealing that you know of my years in Toulon. Not immediately, at least."

"I already told you what an unfair trade that would be!"

"But if you are not mad, your knowledge of what will and has happened already far outweighs my own, does it not? Besides, you have paid dearly for any insights and secrets, in ways I do not wish to contemplate." Silence rested between them for a few moments before Madeleine continued, his voice thoughtful. "Furthermore, this is a topic I have long wished to discuss with my strict Inspector. My sense of self-preservation convinced me that it was far too dangerous to bring up, but the temptation has remained."

"Speak, then. I swear that I will keep your secrets from all others."

"Of course you will, Javert." Madeleine dared to smile at him again. "Now. If your story was of a man whose devotion to law blinded him to true justice, mine is far meaner. It is the story of a man who crawled into a parish like a sneaking dog, left as a thief and was returned in chains. But there, at what might have been the end of all stories in another world, a miracle occurred." Madeleine stopped by his fireplace, his hand reaching out to touch the candlesticks and he stroked the polished silver with loving fingers. "To this wretch lower than an animal, the Bishop of Digne showed mercy. He had before him a thankless man, who had grown to hate the entire world, and he showed me a glimpse of God's eternal love."

"Am I to gather that your first action out of Toulon was to steal again?" Javert said. Hard as he tried, he could not disguise a streak of accusation in his words.

Madeleine remained calm and shook his head.

"I asked for honest work," he said, "I begged for it! But I was either refused or forced to slave for less than any other man, despite bearing twice the load. I asked, as humbly as you could wish, for the right to rest next to the beasts during the cold night, for a moment's warmth by the fire. All I received was abuse, until then the bishop gave me these, and more than that! Come, I shall show you." He rose and Javert followed him into the small office, where the mayor's papers and letters were gathered in ordered heaps on his desk.

Taking out a key hanging on a small chain around his neck, he pulled out a sturdy chest from beneath the bed. Opening the iron-clad lid, he showed Javert the content: silver, several heavy chalices. "See these? Stolen goods, once," he said and took up one of the beautiful pieces, the edge worked and decorated. It was far grander than any of the dinnerware that ever graced Madeleine's simple table, yet was obviously kept well polished. "Everything I had taken, he gifted to me, when he could have condemned me with a word. And then he gave me two pieces more."

"The candlesticks," Javert surmised.

"Indeed; that was his final gift. Or, in his own words, the final payment for my soul, bought for our Lord."

"And so saint begets saint," Javert muttered, hardly believing his ears. "Is this what you are trying to repeat? With your alms and projects, with your endless charity and your blind trust that reaches even to a cold-hearted jailer such as I? Is that why you took the child for yourself, a simple barter with the Almighty?"

"Perhaps," Madeleine said gently, "we cannot buy a soul. But, as the good Bishop taught me, we can buy a second chance." He frowned. "Though I do not understand what child you speak of?"

Javert waved the matter away, his ire rising. "So, for every man who falls from grace, a handful of silver is enough to raise them; is that your great revelation? The weight of these pieces are what bends your back down to the wretched of the street, until all that you were drowns in the man of holy mercy?"

"No! That is not what is going on! I do not wish to create a chain of miracles, nor am I naïve enough to believe a handful of coins can buy the souls of this entire city! But surely you must see, Javert! I was no more bought free from sin with this treasure than you could be bribed away from the law with two handfuls of gold. It was trust, can't you understand that? It was the knowledge that in the eyes of this one man at least, I was human! I was worth saving. With all my faults and all my shame, he looked me in the eyes and saw a fellow man!"

"And yet he said that he had bought you," Javert pointed out. "He did not blindly give! He demanded your lifelong service in return!"

"It is a price I was, am, happy to pay. Today, nothing but my honour demands that I try and settle my debts."

"Then why do you give them everything so freely?" He waved an arm towards the docks, where Monsieur le Maire was a frequent visitor; always with a pocketful of coins and a kind word – or meaningless platitude – ready for every lost soul. Despite Javert's attempts to clean the area up and the growing prosperity of the town, there were always plenty of those ready to take the coin and ignore the word.

"Because it is my hope that those few coins, those simple words, will remind them that they should not let themselves become what I have been."

"They should not let themselves get caught, you mean?"

"If my little gifts can keep anyone from the despair that makes them throw away half a lifetime for one evening's meal, then yes; I shall do my best to keep them from your clutches. Please, Javert. You of all men must know what that place does to a man's heart. I feel it still, though less these days than before."

"Perhaps I am a fool," Javert muttered, "perhaps all these lessons of mercy that I believed I had learned were only lip-service, because I can _not_ see. Monsieur! They try and trick you every night! There are always some whose hearts are flint, whose purses are not near empty enough to need your help, and you still give to them all, indiscriminately and without demanding anything in return! What soul is saved by you reinforcing the lesson that begging leads to gain?"

"The Bishop was a good man," Madeleine said, giving the chalice a final caress before he returned it to its hiding-place. "I am merely a repentant sinner; if this fine treasure equals a soul as downtrodden as mine, it would be unfair of me to expect anything but a few moments of attention for the little gifts I give. I try, Javert, but I can find neither the temperament nor the wisdom to judge who deserves help. And so, I try to give a little to all."

"What about the girl, then? You saved her from a child's hell. Was that all out of remorse?"

"I fear you will have to tell me which child you mean, Javert, because I do not recall giving special attention to anyone."

He rolled his eyes in irritation. "Fantine's daughter., of course! We last met her last Christmas, when the convent choir sang before mass. In another life, she became your daughter."

"I took little Euphrasie for my own?" Madeleine shook his head and led them back to the sitting room. "The poor thing must have been in dire straits indeed, if nobody but an old bachelor such as myself was there to care for her. While it pains me to hear that poor Fantine seems doomed to leave us when she should still be filled with youth, I am relieved that I can ensure her daughter more appropriate surroundings now."

Javert's next step turned into an ungainly stumble. "She is dying? Fantine?"

"It is not quite that bad yet," Madeleine assured him. "But unfortunately, you have the gist of it. The cough has her and the doctors agree that it is bad. I have had her sent to the recuperation home, for the fresher air. But she feared that she would not be able to care for her daughter much longer, and so I arranged a stipend so that Euphrasie might remain in the monastery school. She will stay with the sisters until she is grown, after which there awaits a sum of money that will see her married decently. Unless, of course, she chooses to remain," he added approvingly. "The sisters had only good words for her patience and understanding of the scripture."

"Did you sign this agreement today?" Javert asked, his voice faint.

Only now noticing how ashen his face was, Madeleine hurried to push him into a chair. "Oh dear, you seem most affected by this. Pardon me, I did not know... You were fond of little Euphrasie, in your first life?"

"Please, Monsieur le Maire, when did you sign the agreement for the child to go to the convent?"

"Three days ago. Although," he tapped his cheek, "my secretary forgot to take out the post. So it might not have reached the Mother Superior until today. Why? Surely you do not believe that the good sisters will mistreat the girl?"

Finally seeing the shape of it all, Javert ignored Madeleine's words. He spoke detachedly, as if dictating notes for a future report. "I have died twice for forgetting that I held knowledge that would save an innocent man from the docks. If I had not recalled him, I would still be dying on the day when his conviction fell. That, at least, was clear-cut once I realized it. The man was innocent; my testimony could save him, and so it did. But this?" He dragged a hand through his hair. "Forgive me, Monsieur le Maire, for my foolish ramblings, but why in the name of all hells could you not have mentioned it the first time?" Voice rising sharply, Javert continued. "How was I supposed to know that the woman was _dying again_ when nobody would tell me?"

"Javert," he began, but the inspector was not in the mood to listen.

"I can strive for justice, I can work myself to the bone to be fair and merciful, but I find it unfair that I am, apparently, expected to bring your happy little family together! Oh God above," he spat, tearing at his hair in frustration, "this probably means I must ensure that you save that idiot boy too!"

"Boy?" Looking worried, Madeleine interjected a question. "Are you saying that I will come to wrong another child?"

"Nay, not enough! A town, a child, a fool – not enough! That would be too lenient a sentence for me!" Javert continued. Unable to remain still, he jumped up, his steps propelling him towards the door so quickly that the mayor barely had time to pull on a coat and grab his hat as he hurried after him.

"Javert! Calm yourself!"

"Why should I? I have time, all the time in the world!" Twirling around, he fixed Madeleine with an accusing look. "I have an eternity of repeating these years to look forward to, because saving the whore and this damned town and every bleeding beggar who arrives at the gates is not good enough! Oh no, I see it now – I will not be rid of this accursed life until you have personally had the opportunity to deliver each and every blasted revolutionary and street urchin to a better life, will I? But of course. I must not simply tell you to take the brat and run, because then the town will fail and I will be doomed to do it all over again!"

"_Javert_!" When Monsieur le Maire chose to use his strength, it was like being in the grasp of a stone statue, immobile and forbidding. "Do you truly believe that you are in Hell, beyond all salvation?"

"No!" he snarled, "of course not! If I were, I would have returned to a far lower point in my life and each of my deaths would be a thousand time worse! What do you think infuriates me so? They dangle a release in front of my eyes and snatch it away, leaving me to start over again and again and yet I can't help but hope! I hate this hope! I curse it, I would kill it, and I still can't let it go!"

"Good." Realizing that he had pulled the Inspector half off his feet, Madeleine eased his grip, though he kept hold of Javert. "You may curse your hope, my friend, but you must not give it up," he said, words soft, but spoken with complete faith. "I believe you, I truly do. And it is because I do believe that I fear you would stumble into eternal damnation if you were to give in to true despair."

"But I do despair," Javert said, sagging altogether as his anger faded. "You speak to a doomed man, Monsieur. The river is almost drowning out your words and the night is empty of stars and hope alike. I don't see – This is not changing the course of a trial, this is not interrupting an unjust firing. I do not even understand why you need the girl, never mind how you are to come together."

"I do not know it either," Madeleine said, "so walk with me, and speak to me. Let us together see if we cannot untangle this knot in fate; what do you believe must happen?"

And together, they walked through the night, while Javert shared the fragmentary knowledge he had of Cosette's life with first the Thénardier couple and then with Jean Valjean. When the first rays of the sun touched the town of Montreuil-sur-Mer, they seemed to flood the crowded buildings with liquid fire, and both men stopped to take in the sight of the grey buildings shining with dreamlike gold.

"I cannot imagine your torment," Madeleine murmured, "but I hope you see that even in purgatory, there can be beauty."

"I have never contested that," Javert said softly, wiping away a fine sweat of film from his brow, the long night taking its toll on him. "Though, I suppose if one must die," he exhaled, long and slow, and admitted, "this is a fine sight to take into the next world."

Madeleine hummed in agreement. When, a few seconds later, Javert seemed to stumble against him, he gave him a companionable bump with his shoulder. But instead of offering resistance, the Inspector fell to the side, landing heavily on the ground.

The question on his tongue died unuttered as he beheld Javert. The man was pale and sweating, with a heavy flow of blood dripping from his nose. When Madeleine began fumbling for his handkerchief, Javert's cool hand found his and he shook his head.

"Never mind," he said, his breathing growing more shallow with every passing second. "This is... not bad."

"But you were fine a moment ago!" Madeleine looked around desperately, but the streets were empty and asleep. "Help!" he called. "Is there anyone there? Help! For God's sake!"

"Tomorrow, I'll be again..." Lips turning blue, Javert struggled for a final breath. His last smile was grim, bloodied, and forced, but triumphant for all that. "I'll see you, M'sieur le Maire. Tomorrow."

* * *

Reviews etc are welcome as always.


	3. To labour, heavy laden

First some notes:

1) I'd like to start with thanking my betas, Voksen and Morgan, who have been a huge help in whipping this fic into shape. Thanks!

2) I seem to have mis-posted this fic, since it's 2012 movie!canon, and not actual Brick!canon. Sorry, but when I couldn't find a Les Misérables movie category, I didn't think to look for a musical category. Since some people are following this here, I'll just leave it where it is. Hope it doesn't disappoint people!

Thanks for reading this far!

* * *

**The eleventh time**

Javert woke to a moment of disorientation. It was that morning, but also not. There was still the scent of lavender and sea, but where was the maid walking past his room? Why was the light different, half a shade brighter than it should have been? He turned his head against the pillow, seeking support in a suddenly unstable world and winced as his neck cracked painfully.

Someone knocked on the door, the sound familiar from his sleep. This must have been what had woken him. Then he heard the maid's voice; soft, because she was wary of the inspector from grand Paris, but dutiful enough to knock until he answered.

Now he understood. It was past time to wake up and begin anew. He should not be late on his very first day.

But Javert's head ached as if his skull had been cracked open the evening before, and someone was pulping his brains in this very now. Beneath that pain, his neck felt stiff and crooked as an old board, and there were a hundred worries swirling inside him.

The last two deaths had been harsh; Javert found himself reluctant to begin another round of this cruel game.

And so he called out to the maid, sending her away so that he could remained in bed a little longer. He must try to sort out the strands of memory and hope still flowing through his throbbing head if he was ever to repair the plan that had seemed so clear when he had concocted it lifetimes ago.

When Javert had realized that the child and her connection to Valjean were essential for his progress towards whatever end awaited him, he felt at first an overwhelming sense of frustration. This tangle was far more opaque than merely ensuring that a woman was not fired without cause.

Javert knew the outlines of how the lives of the mayor and the orphan intersected, but he did not understand why the girl mattered so. Worse, he could not imagine how he should push Valjean in that direction. When Javert dared allow himself to indulge in some semblance of friendship with the mayor, when the problem of Champmathieu's trial was defused without Valjean being revealed, he seemed only more inclined to remain in Montreuil-sur-Mer. To fumble blindly and hope to somehow find the right chain of actions seemed a tremendous waste of time. He had further seen how each action could cause a rippling change that was not obvious at once, and feared he would overlook a critical detail.

After meditating on the matter, Javert realized that he should treat the problem like any other crime to be investigated, with one great difference. It was a crime both having been committed, and eternally waiting to take place on the other side of death. Further, Javert himself was the only eyewitness who could come into question.

Problem identified, there was only one solution that suggested itself: to witness it from the beginning and learn the facts. Without further ado, Javert decided to sacrifice a lifetime to investigate what happened to Fantine.

Which exact events led to her premature death and to the mayor's promise to care for her child? How could he stop the first, while still guaranteeing the latter? It was no different from any other investigation; if one lacked sufficient facts one must collect them with due expedience.

Embarking upon his new life with the conscious effort to behave as distantly as he had the very first time ought not to have been difficult. His memory was excellent, so he need only to refrain from interfering. Simply wait and watch, while everything slowly careened towards disaster...

Intellectually, Javert knew that in this life events occurred close to how they had in the first world. The real world, he supposed he should call it, though it was a concept he found himself struggling with more and more, the further his purgatory stretched. It was an appalling weakness, but he found he could not keep hold of sanity if he imagined that everyone around him was merely a twisted shade created to teach him a lesson.

Much to his frustration, while acknowledging his surroundings to be reality saved his mind, the decision pained his conscience. It meant his actions in this wasted life hurt not only himself, but his fellow men. And for Javert to be part cause for another's misery, while having knowledge that could change fate...

Necessity drove him to refrain, but it was a constant temptation to intervene and try to salvage what could still be saved. To his lingering embarrassment, he was also certain that Monsieur Madeleine would have approved heartily of the moral dilemma he experienced. Of course, being who he was, Madeleine's solution might have been more elegant than to plod through the entire sorry mess of a year and attempt to figure out what to improve in the next life.

Javert had never considered Fantine a friend, or even an acquaintance of note. However, as he came to realize, they had interacted often during the two spans of five years he had lived in a prospering Montreuil-sur-Mer. She was a friendly woman, grateful for his help; she was also a proud woman, never feeling that she had to crawl before him for what she saw only as justice finally being served.

Fantine's working hours had remained long in all lives, even with the mayor helping to pay for her child's schooling. Thus, Javert had frequently passed into her on his way to leave an afternoon report or to remind Monsieur le Maire that, while charity was a virtue, budget restraints still existed. He had acknowledged her greetings and, after a few lifetimes, they had even begun exchanging a few polite phrases.

To then stand aside and not bring Madeleine's attention to her plight, was difficult. Javert had spied on her, watched how she slowly lost everything: hair and youth, dignity, health, and hope. As the months progressed, he saw her again as he remembered her from the very beginning: bitter, old before her time, a toothless woman who only clung to life for the flickering memory of a small girl.

When she had grown ill, the decline of his own health followed a few days later.

This time, Javert did not rage over his illness. He only tried to hide the weakness in his limbs and dampen the cough that plagued him. What before had seemed the whim of fate he now considered fair penance. He had let this woman suffer for nothing but his own selfish gain – no more than right that he paid with his own health in turn. Hopefully, what he learned would be worth their shared suffering.

Fantine numbed herself with cheap gin. It turned her pale cheeks flush without giving them the glow of life and he watched with disgust how she sold herself to rough, unkind men, slowly turning even harder than they were.

If she had been a man, Javert realized, he could have mistaken her for a lifer at Toulon, one of those men who had not expired only because they were too worn down from the chains and the lash to realize that they were walking corpses.

And she hated; oh, how she hated. Whatever small mercy Madeleine had offered her during her final days, it must have quelled her hatred somewhat, or she would have gone cursing into the dark. But she was still alone in this life and he smelled it on her, hatred enough to overpower the stink of gin and filth accumulating on her body.

If she had been a prisoner under his guard, he would have given her double chains and not spared her from the lash. But she was a woman, and so her hatred was ignored. She was poor and desperate, but not vicious enough use a blade to take what she needed. Or, more likely, she was too naïve to know how to begin, but clever enough to realize that a failed attempt would mean her daughter's death.

His own sickness kept pace with Fantine's, despite Javert having access to proper food, warmth, and a safe place to rest. It was more a curse than an illness, he suspected, but nevertheless it must not defeat him too fast.

As the year progressed, Javert grit his teeth and took an ever-increasing dose of laudanum with his daily snuff. The bitter tincture slowed him down and dimmed his faculties, until he was forced to relay on memories of suspects collared in other lives to carry him through his duties.

This foul but necessary habit burdened his already meagre purse. Further strain was added when his failing energy forced him to choose between either managing his duties as inspector while taking proper care of his home and garments, or doing his duty and allotting additional time to investigate Fantine. No matter what Javert attempted, he could not find the energy to do all three. Stumbling through his work with dark bruises beneath his eyes because the hours in the day did not suffice was bad enough on its own.

With the cough of a consumptive already marking him, with the fear and contempt this drew from neighbours and fellow policemen alike, Javert knew that letting himself appear slovenly or struggling might well end with him losing his position. That he dared not risk, for he desperately needed the authority to threaten Fantine when the night came. There was only one solution; he hired a housekeeper who could also cook for him, and sought much-needed rest in the embrace of the poppy every hour that he could afford.

Since these new expenses took all the coin he earned, he found himself facing the unfortunate choice between appearing respectable or having dinner on his plate.

There was one obvious solution; the same one which had leered at him since he had first put on a guardsman's uniform. But ill, and drugged, and destined for death he might have been – Javert was still determined that he'd rather spend a lifetime clinging to the lowest rungs of hell than accept any bribes.

So he borrowed. Perhaps this was also a form of theft, as he had no intention of staying alive long enough to pay back the majority of the money, but it was at least not against the letter of the law. Javert racked up a hefty debt in a surprisingly short amount of time and found that he had to constantly keep money shifting between the lenders to hide the extent of his financial problems.

His reputation from Paris, and his unsubtle threats regarding the weight of the law on those who engaged in usury and were stupid enough to implicate an officer involved in it, kept the scum thinking that they each had a secret, _solitary_ grip on his wallet and good name.

When Fantine finally broke and assaulted the ninny harassing her, Javert could hardly manage his lines. His words echoed strangely in his mouth and the entire world wavered around him. It was good luck that Monsieur le Maire paid him no attention whatsoever, or he might have wondered why his Chief Inspector was struggling so to stay upright.

It took no time at all to get medical leave the morning after his failed arrest. The clerk at the Administration Centrale had been hinting about just that with increasing volume for a month or two; Javert's doses were on such a level that he could no longer quite tell the days apart.

The last of his wages went to renting a closed wagon to take him to Montfermeil, the price rising twice when he was interrupted by a coughing attack during the negotiations.

Once arrived, he paid the loathsome innkeeper for three nights in advance with 'money' unlawfully confiscated from a forger. That crook's operations Javert would have revealed in two months time, in any saner world. The disgust he felt at handling counterfeit money in such a manner made his hands crawl with revulsion. Bad enough that he had confiscate the money with selfish intent in mind; he'd regretted his choice almost before the transaction had finished, but had been unable to find a better solution at this late date. But this was nothing compared to the utter self-disgust he felt when he – a man of law! – passed on adulterated coinage to anyone, even if it was a rat like Thénardier.

If he had to do this over again, Javert swore to himself, he'd simply cancel his damn rental contract and sleep in the office. Anything was better than debasing himself like this!

The miserable state of the inn did at least help alleviate his guilt at fooling Thénardier out of his proper payment. Javert's final three days were spent down in the public house, spilling the disgusting slop served on the floor and his own shirt to make it look as if he actually drank it. Between the short time he had left and the way the cough tore through him with every other breath, not even Javert considering bringing the crooks gathered around him to justice. Instead, he finished off his store of medication and observed.

Years as a prison guard, decades as a policeman, and he was still stunned by the amount of pickpocketing, trickery, hustling, swindling, scamming and sheer blatant theft taking place around him.

The innkeepers stole everything they could grab, including Javert's lead-weighted stick and his boots. The stick was nabbed while Mme Thénardier attempted to hawk him a tonic against his cough (ten francs for what, if his senses hadn't completely taken leave, was mainly cat piss and indigo dye) and he lacked the breath to demand its return.

When he woke on the second morning of his stay, Javert found that his boots had aged twenty years and acquired a crack in the heel overnight. The night after that, now assured that he truly was as ailing as he appeared, the innkeepers stole back the cracked boots and left him with a pair of ill-fitting wooden clogs. When he remarked on the matter, Thénardier tried to sell him back his original footwear for twice what Javert had paid in the first place.

If the entire pub had not been such a disgusting hovel of filth that Javert suspected that one night under its roof could leave a man with the clap – if he did not land himself with a case of the plague after one taste of the "beer" – he would've sent some of his cockier young constables here to learn the true meaning of vileness. And then he'd simply torch the hellhole.

Disgusting as the environments were – and they were abysmal enough that he, who had grown up on the leftovers of convicts, preferred to starve for three days rather than risk the food – they could not compare to the filth Javert saw in the owners' souls.

There were men ruined by bad fortune who quickly learned to take joy in cruelty, who forgot everything that had once earned them the title of 'men'. Javert had seen plenty who used any little excuse to abandon everything they knew of God's law, of decency and honour, and he despised them all. But even among these lowest souls, few showed the same gleeful willingness to root in the filth and effluences of humanity as the Thénardier couple. No crime seemed too low or dirty for them as long as there was a coin to be earned.

To make matters worse, they did not even have the pride to admit their thieving ways, but spoke of the ongoings in the inn with an affected, simpering air. "Our little tricks," Thénardier would tell his guests, "our little games, don't we enjoy them together?" The woman was as bad: "Needs must, deary, needs must," she whispered to her young daughter before she pretended to have an accident with her dress, after which she robbed her suitor dry.

As far as Javert was considered, give him a quartet of highway robbers over this lot, any day of the week.

During his entire stay, the laudanum making his mind heavy but not completely dulling his eyes, Javert saw not one instance of kindness in their hearts, nor a flake of generosity in either of them; not even toward the woeful little child left in their care.

He only met little Cosette on the second day of his stay, when he took a constitutional walk through the woods. There, he knew from earlier lifetimes, he ought to find a well. Hopefully, the water was fit to ingest, because the thirst was driving him mad and the so-called beer only made it worse.

The child was struggling with a heavy bucket when he saw her and he understood immediately why Valjean had chosen to take her closer than all his other charity cases. She was too young to be ruined by her environment: marked by the grinding poverty, yes, but with no stains in her clear eyes. Watching her struggling through a task she was not grown to handle, Javert thought her blessed with a face straight from an illustration prescribing charity towards the Lord's children.

It was not merely that she was unhappy, though she was, or that she kept striving to finish a task so clearly unsuited for her small frame. It was that this miserable little girl was so blatantly _undeserving _of all the evils in her life; she had committed no crime, earned no punishment, and carried around no further sin than that allotted to every soul of woman born.

If Javert hadn't already suffered a headache, he was certain he would have developed one soon. In some aspects, Jean Valjean remained incredibly predictable, no matter what name he carried.

When he in Toulon had spotted a potential escape, he had climbed any wall, never stopping to think of how to navigate the world beyond and keep his freedom. Likewise, Javert knew that upon meeting this orphan girl, Valjean would be quick to see in her every deserving thing he refused to recognize in himself. He'd let Monsieur le Maire fall to the roadside, bury both the inventor and the charismatic politician deep inside: to save a child like this, he'd hide away everything of himself and never take another risk in his life if he could avoid it, without consideration of what such a single-minded devotion would entail for the future.

If he had been a betting man, Javert would have wagered his badge on the innkeeper receiving a pocketful of undeserved gold for giving the girl up. That, too, explained why Thénardier would be so quick to recognize Valjean in Paris years later. Javert might further have bet, not that anyone would've been fool enough to take it, that the girl would soon be coddled with all the luxury Monsieur le Maire had never afforded himself.

Perhaps it was a good thing he was already so infirm, or he might have been tempted to interfere.

Only one mystery remained to him. How did the child come to have such an influence on the fate of things, that her lack from Valjean's life had caused him to die twice? He could not fathom how this act of charity could be so much more deserving of consideration than Monsieur le Maire's dreams of a large, well-staffed children's hospital, which he was unlikely to have time to build if he was also to adopt the girl.

But Javert's place was not to ask questions. His, the role of the sinner trying to strive and repent.

When, on the morning of the third day, he heard the carefully cultivated tones of Monsieur le Maire demanding the child, he could barely contain his gratitude that this awful existence was at an end – nor his annoyance over the fact that Thénardier walked away with_ two thousand francs_. Had he not been too weak to call the mayor to task for his foolishness, it might all have ended then and there.

Instead Javert managed to drag himself up the stairs, to the lice-infested pallet he'd rented for a king's ransom, and collapsed. While he lay choking on the noxious phlegm of his own lungs, too weak to even use the straight-razor he'd tied to his chest, he prayed that the plan he had concocted during these hellish days would be enough to save him from a similar fate ever again.

When he next woke to the familiar morning, in his fresh, _clean_ room with lungs that could freely supply him with air; when his body was his again, when he could speak and run and draw a thousand breaths without tiring, he had fallen to his knees in supplication on the wooden floor. His prayers were jumbled, but never had he spoken a more heartfelt thanks to the Lord.

In retrospect, Javert realized that he had made a number of critical mistakes during that first day, too drunk on his returned health and fitness to consider the impressions he would leave in the town. He had cut his visit to the precinct short, offhandedly proving his knowledge of the routines with several examples that shocked his constables in their exactness.

Then, too impatient to ride the same route through Montreuil-sur-Mer once more, he had gone to the church. It took only a few harsh orders before he was admitted to the bell tower.

He'd rushed up the stairs, laughing with more than a little madness, and thrown the shutters open as soon as he reached the top of the tower. Air! Fresh, sweet air! Barely a prickle of sweat down his back, not a cough to be heard. His body was reliable again; his choices once more his own. In that moment, the familiar streets of Montreuil-sur-Mer appeared as dear to him as the gates of heaven and he swore to protect them from the dangers that waited ahead.

Not for Jean Valjean, not for Monsieur le Maire, but so that he would always have this unsullied moment to recall: The clock tower, the open sky ahead, and beneath the citizens striving forward in their everyday lives, honest men and women under his protection.

Filled with new elation and dedication to his duty, Javert returned to his usual path. He had a mental map of events now, and planned to use this hard-won knowledge in the best way. First, there was the introduction to the mayor to take care of. He slipped in a small word regarding the familiarity of Madeleine's face, but allowed nothing but admiration to show at the feat of strength when the cart broke.

For Fantine, there would be two days of useless search for new employment before she left to sell her medallion and returned shorn. Then she would not return to the docks for another three days, not until a letter had arrived from Thénardier which demanded further payment.

Five days, which Javert used to investigate every nook and cranny of the town, so that he could 'happen' to run into her when she was returning to the docks and stopped her before she lost her teeth. After years of watching Monsieur le Maire, whose soft words and compassionate eyes could connect to the last remaining gentleness in a hardened soul, it wasn't hard to display enough concern that the distraught young woman unburdened herself to Javert.

He promised to bring attention to the matter, although he tempered it by insisting that he must see the child in question first, as well as reassure himself of her good character so that he did not drag Monsieur le Maire into a scandal. Until then, he needed to get Fantine off the street and out of harm's way.

Javert's rented rooms included bedding, curtains, and all other fabrics a household needed. Since the items were clean and of reasonable quality, if worn from years of use, he had never bothered to exchange them before. They did however show their age, so it was easy to engage Fantine to sew him a new set while he made inquiries into her case. The money he could offer was less than the factory's wages, and far less than a proper seamstress would have demanded. Still, it was honest pay, and she was canny enough to consider his vested self-interest a further proof that his unusual attention was no cover for something more sinister.

When Javert informed the station of his intention to travel to Montfermeil to investigate a potential case of fraud, there was more overt opposition than he had become used to during his latest lives. His policemen and the citizens of Montreuil-sur-Mer alike had previously learned to save their grumbling for the truly radical ideas proposed by Monsieur le Maire. Now, it took several sharp words and an oblique reference to a threatening scandal to quell the protests. Javert left the town in an agitated mood. Some of his officers, men he knew inside and out, seemed to have grown wary towards him, and it rankled him. He did not have the patience to investigate any further complications right now!

It took only a single day to gather enough proof the Thénardiers were involved in criminal activity, had abused the child Cosette, and were committing fraud against her mother, that he could confront them with his findings and see them blanch. When he revealed himself, Javert had to struggle to hold back all he wished to say to the rotten pair, but his efforts were well rewarded. The draft of a letter sticking out of his pocket proved an irresistible temptation and, in the midst of his lecture, Mme Thénardier made her daughter cry out pitifully while she lifted the note from him.

Javert left with Cosette and the stated intention to report their crimes to the local constabulary. To his complete and utter lack of surprise, the premises were abandoned when the authorities returned. The police turned the entire town upside down, but the Thénardier family had flown the cage.

Escaped, full of vengeful feelings towards Javert, Fantine and hopefully all of Montreuil-sur-Mer.

Monsieur Thénardier would have plenty of reason to study the stolen letter wherein Javert had outlined his suspicions regarding the true identity of Monsieur Madeleine, alias Jean Valjean, alias the parole-breaker 24601 of Toulon. If that didn't convince him to come creeping around the mayor, well... Why bother worrying about the impossible?

In many ways, it made things easier that the innkeeper wasn't a complete dullard. He knew Javert would be there, would know his face and that of his family. He ought to suspect that Fantine would both recall and resent his features once the truth of little Cosette's treatment came out, and he would of course need to investigate whether there was profit to be had from squeezing M Madeleine.

Which there was, in considerable amounts, and so Javert estimated that he would have about a year before the Thénardiers appeared again. A year spent in hiding, waiting for the inspector to forget, for Cosette to stop recalling the horrible innkeepers, and then the crooks would slink into town to try and sink their poisonous claws into the good mayor's wallet.

Until then, Javert had his job cut out for him: He must make sure Fantine was reinstated in her old position, while keeping her child away from Monsieur le Maire so that he wouldn't have time to send the girl to a convent or something equally troublesome. Then, when Thénardier arrived, Javert must be in a close enough position to reveal his knowledge to the mayor without the man either fleeing or ignoring Javert's warnings. It was a fine-tuned web of intrigue and he prayed that he was skilful enough to play it as it should be done.

Realizing that of the players in this game, the one he knew the least of was Cosette, Javert decided to use the carriage ride back to Montreuil-sur-Mer to familiarize himself with the girl. This turned out to be more difficult than he had anticipated. The girl was happy to follow him with the promise of food and her mother waiting at the end of the ride, but she was hardly a brilliant conversationalist; an accusation that could be laid against Javert as well, which lead to several attempts that ended up both awkward and uninformative.

As the carriage rattled down the road, the girl had remained quiet, nibbling on a piece of bread Javert had given her. Now and then, when she thought he was looking out through the window, she would mouth what looked like songs to the rag she used as a doll, but as soon as she felt his eyes on her, she clammed up. Feeling that it would be futile to hope for her to initiate conversation, Javert decided on the direct method. He would question her and see what he learned.

"What do you wish to become when you grow up?" he asked, after they had spent most of an hour glancing at each other in silence.

The girl considered for a moment, and looked down at the rag as if seeking support. "A pretty lady, like my Mama."

"Do you not have any grander dreams, any aspirations of note?"

She chewed on a finger, and he attempted to twist his lips towards something friendly. Perhaps it worked, because she answered. "...I want a castle."

"A castle?"

"Yes, a pretty white one."

Her ambitions were certainly lofty enough. "And when you have this castle, what do you intend to do with it?"

"I want to take Mama there! And Papa will come to live with us, and we'll be happy together."

"I see."

"I'll have lots of pretty dolls too, in my castle."

Javert considered informing her of the importance of diligent work for realizing one's dreams, but glancing at her red, cracked little hands, he abandoned that idea. Since the questioning gambit didn't seem likely to pay out before they reached Montreuil-sur-Mer, Javert changed tactics. With the environment she had grown up in thus far, it might be good to ensure that she realized that crime did not pay.

Cosette didn't always follow the judicial details, but was willing enough to listen to his stories of criminals apprehended and punished. Proving herself a young woman of character, she was also more interested in the girls (whom she insisted on referring to as princesses) and mothers (Javert had, in a stroke of insight, realized how he should tailor the stories to keep the interest of his audience) being saved, than in gruesome details of corporal punishment.

When they stopped for a rest and some refreshments, Cosette found a piece of wood, no doubt torn from a tree during a storm, and incorporated it in her play. If one squinted, Javert supposed that the flattened, wider part of the piece might show some similarities to his hat. When the coachman donated a rag, the wooden inspector acquired a coat as well, and was thus perfectly equipped to arrest both the evil Madame and a fire-breathing dragon.

The rest of the journey was spent explaining the more approachable applications of the Code Napoléon, sometimes using a folded rag-doll and a piece of wood to demonstrate the issues. Javert soon realized another reason for Valjean's attachment to the child: they shared the same stubborn insistence in viewing events from the most favourable angle possible. Even if the girl lacked the vocabulary and education to make her points convincingly, she definitely had the mindset of a defending attorney.

It was a great relief to deliver the child to her mother at last.

When he then spoke to Monsieur le Maire, it was an even greater relief to show him the other face of Javert, after living a year of enforced solitude. To watch his shock and suspicion turn into honest joy at this proof of mercy was perhaps more satisfying than was quite proper, but Javert decided that he deserved a little lenience; it was not if fate would give him any.

He was careful to make the barest mention of Cosette, enough that the mayor was reassured that Fantine was fit to care for her, if only she could regain her place. He also implied that the child's presence was the best deterrent against further immoralities from the mother.

Javert was certain that Fantine's independence would keep her from relying too heavily on the mayor's charity. He planned to cultivate his own acquaintance with her more thoroughly than before to make sure of it.

If she then followed the pattern and began sickening in four years... and if Javert could keep Thénardier from blundering the extortion he was sure to attempt against Monsieur le Maire by revealing that he had no concrete proof, only Javert's list of suspicions... if he could keep Valjean from taking fright and running off until it was time for him to leave _with_ the soon-to-be orphaned girl... If he could use his influence to keep Montreuil-sur-Mer from falling into ruin after Monsieur le Maire left... Many variables, too many unknowns for his peace of mind, but it was a viable plan. Javert had all intentions that it should succeed at his first attempt.

Until things fell in place, or fell apart completely, he had his work to do and two friendly relationships to initiate. Compared to the misery of the last year, it was almost a dream come true – perhaps the reason he failed to notice the growing unrest in his own police force.

If another had viewed the matter from outside, they might have condemned Javert less harshly than he later judged himself. He had at that point spent roughly seventeen years reliving his time in Montreuil-sur-Mer. The further each life stretched, the more events morphed and formed new, unpredictable patterns. However, unless Javert took radical action, his first year always remained unnervingly similar in each cycle. To solve the crimes that always occurred was a trifle at this point. He could have done it in his sleep – and had; how else to describe the year spent in the waking dream of the opium addict?

Thus, secure in the knowledge that the results would remain the same, Javert allowed himself to shorten his working hours somewhat. He knew exactly where to send his men on patrol, he knew who to interrogate and about where to begin searching for any stolen goods. What harm a small reprieve? The citizens and Monsieur le Maire alike seemed satisfied with him.

Certainly Javert used some of his free time to keep an eye out for Thénardier, and also invested a certain effort in the task of mingling with the more liberal-minded of the influential townspeople, building connections for the future.

Most of the time, though, he tried to keep an eye on the key players in the game of fate.

Every other week, he would meet with Fantine and Cosette in one of the more reputable inns, where he bought them dinner and quizzed Cosette on her understanding of justice. Seeing as how Fantine could not shake her reputation as a fallen woman even when she hid her short hair under a cap, she had few friends among the workers in the factory. Though a bit wary, she seemed glad for this occasion to speak to a reasonably friendly face. They had each taken turns at making oblique, but firm, rebuffs of any potential romantic entanglements before they might be issued from the other party. Javert was relieved when he realized that the idea repelled Fantine as thoroughly as it did him, and after that, their meetings flowed more easily.

Cosette, too, was something of a loner. The nuns had accepted the child without prejudice, but Fantine mentioned her worry about the girl having few friends of her own age. Javert, who had grown up shunning the few children around him with the same fervour with which he detested their parents, could offer no advice. He attempted to plant the idea of a new start in another city as a fine if unattainable dream for Cosette's future, but was not at all certain that Fantine understood his hints.

His careful overtures of friendship towards Monsieur le Maire were rewarded faster than Javert had expected. Soon they were spending at least one evening each week together, usually taking long walks through the town while debating everything from justice, law and the correct interpretation of the Lord's word, to improvements to their town and the architectural and financial problems connected to them. The latter tended to become especially intense with regards to the town-wide sanitary system which the mayor considered a necessary step to combat the spread of diseases.

While Javert had been convinced to his point of view some two lifetimes ago already, and had studied several treatises on the topic in the intermittent years, he still had many issues with the exact form of Monsieur le Maire's plans. He especially took offence at the way the man planned to to finance most of the project out of his own pocket, rather than apply to the government to use Montreuil-sur-Mer as a full-scale study for evaluating new styles of civic engineering.

As the mayor argued, the latter would cost him years of work and, as even Javert had to admit, the odds for success where not impressive. Doing it on his own, while the project still required careful planning and budgeting, the work could theoretically begin immediately. Meanwhile, Javert argued passionately for using the proper channels and thereby ensuring that the project was anchored in the district on all levels before any money was spent. This way, if something happened to Monsieur le Maire, there would still remain people convinced of the merits of the idea on its own.

Further, Javert pointed out, if he managed to finish the undertaking without emptying his coffers completely, it would only give the misers in the government fuel. What would happen when another town, lacking a philanthropic millionaire for mayor, asked for financial support to improve their sanitary regimes?

That argument carried them through the entire summer, until Javert compromised so far as to have one of his constables guide the architect Monsieur le Maire wished to invite to town for a first inspection. The mayor, in turn, began the arduous process of convincing Paris to release money for a large-scale infrastructure improvement in his little provincial town.

When they shook hands on the decision, Javert had to fight to keep a smirk from his lips. He had never before convinced Monsieur le Maire to do something he truly did not want to and was happy to bask in even this small victory.

Perhaps he had not entirely managed to hide his high spirits, because the mayor took one long, suspicious look at him before breaking out in a brilliant smile and inviting him over for dinner. When Javert made to protest, he merely hooked their arms together and used his ridiculous strength to propel them down the street while he waxed praise on the fine fish his housekeeper could prepare for them tonight.

In retrospect, perhaps they should not have begun this step of their friendship in full view of all and sundry.

After fifteen months in Montreuil-sur-Mer, Javert was a regular guest at the mayor's table. Fantine had gained some friends among the newer girls in the factory; Cosette had completely lost the gauntness in her face and no longer flinched like a kicked dog at raised voices in her vicinity. Things were going well, though he was beginning to worry that Thénardier had taken himself off to the ends of the world instead of returning like a proper little blackguard.

If such turned out to be the case, Javert supposed he would have to suddenly "recall" seeing Monsieur le Maire before and perhaps try to bring it to the attention of someone involved in Champmathieu's arrest and acquittal. Unfortunately, that path would take weaving even more misleading half-truths, perhaps even blatant lies, and Javert knew this was not properly in his nature. He'd thus decided to give Thénardier more time to appear, and to wait until the year ended before setting anything else in motion.

The debates between him and Madeleine, some of which had grown comfortable like an old pair of favourite slippers, took on a different tone. They strayed outside of their old topics, allowing the discussion to meander back and forth as fancy carried it.

Now and then, they happened to touch upon the general subject of politics. At first, Madeleine had attempted to disguise his lack of informed opinion on events that had occurred during the twenty years he'd spent in Toulon. He relaxed when Javert revealed that a jailer was almost as isolated from the goings-on of the world as the prisoners he guarded. The memory of another Madeleine illuminating his conversion from convict to philanthropist also made Javert admit that he'd been born to the lowest position of society, and had a very provincial upbringing.

"So, my personal concerns kept me out of the great events that ended an age, while your youth and station in life did the same with you?" Madeleine summarized their situation when they were in his sitting room one evening, sharing the last of a bottle before Javert left. "Then it is doubly good that we have each other to sharpen our words on. Or else we'd soon be revealed as shockingly ignorant, and wouldn't that be a scandal!"

"Yes," Javert drawled, wine and warmth making him a little careless, "if the good burghers of Montreuil-sur-Mer ever found out that both their master and their guard were in truth an uncultured pair of labourers, their collective outrage would tip the town into the sea!"

For a moment Madeleine stared out of him from the corner of his eye, frozen like a rabbit with the snare around his throat, but then he snorted and cracked a laugh. It was not the paternal chuckle of Monsieur le Maire with his chain of office openly displayed, but a drier, more world-weary sound. And all the more honest for that, even if it was quickly buried.

Oh, Javert realized, he had heard laughter like this before. He had perhaps even uttered it himself, once or twice, in the darkness of his childhood where every day was heavy and every night too long. In prison, joy quickly eroded into glee... But, this laughter. On those rare spring days when the sun broke through the clouds and spread warmth enough to soothe broken backs, yet did not cause sweat and thirst to lash at the convicts; then, it could be heard.

There had once been an old tomcat, fat and cleverer than half the inmates, which took a liking to a warden of a similar age and rotund stature. It slept sprawled close to him whenever it could. Then one morning they had been spotted while lying in the first true sun of the year, man and animal breathing in time, peaceful as nothing.

Nobody had bothered to punish for the hilarity this sight inspired.

"Monsieur le Maire," he began, and Madeleine's eyes were wary, but laughter still bubbled inside them. "If you ever need my help," Javert said, leaning forward and pitching his voice low, "I shall stand by your side."

"Your help?"

He could speak now, but what if it was too early to reveal things? He would not lie, not to this man. So Javert chose a third way, and dared lay his hand on the mayor's, feeling the labour-marked fingers twitch beneath his own.

"Monsieur, if one of our fine citizens catch you out being shockingly ignorant, simply call for your Inspector. I shall provide them with such a tedious sermon on the law that your every word will shine witty and brilliant in comparison."

This time, there was nothing furtive about Madeleine's laughter and Javert felt himself answering in kind. His hand remained on the mayor's as they continued to speak of trivialities not worth recalling, talking far into the night while the fire burned down beside them and their glasses remained empty on the table.

Perhaps his words had been prophetic, perhaps his spirits had simply been to high for fate not to stomp down on his foolish self. It was only five days later that Javert's sleep was interrupted by heavy banging on his door. As he had retired a scant hour earlier, it took him a moment to parse what was going on. Only a few seconds of confusion, but it was enough for two men to kick open his door.

That woke Javert completely. He was on his feet, nightstick in hand, before the assailants reached him. With a snarl, he twirled the lead-topped stick, giving the nearest man a good wallop when he tried to grab him. He was about to crack the other one's head open, when he caught sight of a familiar shape entering through the broken door.

"Hold, Javert! In the name of the law, hold!"

The gravelly voice was unmistakeable. Javert stepped back from the fight, though he kept his cane raised. His eyes had not belied him, for before him stood the lanky shape of Inspector Sauveterre; a dutiful man when Javert had met him before, who had the ear of the Prefect of Police himself. Now, looking closer at the men who had attempted to grab him, he could see in their stances how they might have been trained by the force.

The Inspector nodded gravely as their eyes met again, and he held out his hand. "I ask for your cooperation in this, Inspector."

His heart beat faster, and his mind filled with the direst misgivings, but Javert handed over the weapon. While he did not know what was happening, he would not lift a hand against a fellow policeman, much less a superior, no matter what.

"Might I be allowed to dress myself first?" he asked, wryly gesturing to his nightshirt.

"Please," Sauveterre allowed, "but make haste. We have several grave accusations to investigate. Although..." He removed a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket and unfolded it with excessive caution. "The matter would be much simplified, if you could swear to me that this is not in your handwriting?"

Javert was not fool enough to attempt to try take the paper to look at it, though the wild desire to grab the note and tear it up filled him as he recognized the words. He _would_ have lied himself to damnation and back regarding his having penned it, if the grim set of Sauveterre' jaw did not make clear that he'd revealed himself immediately upon reading the letter. His own damning, damned letter about the best man he had known.

"This is all mere conjuncture," Javert tried, feeling blood rush to his face. Or, perhaps, that booming in his ears was not his pulse, but the hungry growl of the river? "I had suspicions when I arrived, but there was nothing. No proof, no sign of guilt. It is nothing."

Sauveterre sighed and folded the note away. "Perhaps it was conjuncture when written. Now, it is evidence. Get the prisoner dressed and bring him along," he snapped to his men before pivoting on his heel and marching out of the apartment.

They brought him to the station. Not in cuffs, but surrounded by four officers. The two from Paris were joined by young Dubois, whom Javert had scolded in every life for his spendthrift ways, and Martel, whom he had fired several times and once thrown into a river. Early as it was, he fancied that he could feel the eyes of the entire town on his back, staring and gossiping. Yet, the shame remained an abstract thing, hovering far below him, and his thoughts were frozen and still. Everything about him had gone cold, as if he was still falling through that river, never dying, never drowning, only tumbling further down into the dark.

Not until he saw Monsieur le Maire did the ice start to crack. Still refined and gentle, even sitting in this ugly, official building, with ugly, official handcuffs around his scarred wrists. They had taken his coat, torn his shirt open to reveal the brand on his chest, but despite this, despite how Javert's bungled attempts at scheming had led to this indignity, he still found it in himself to offer a comforting smile.

"Ah, Javert," he said, "I believe these gentlemen are suffering from a misapprehension regarding our relations. Though I have attempted to explain that you had no way of knowing that I disguised my past from the citizens of this fine town, they are naturally wary of taking my word."

He then made an aborted motion, a mere twitch of a hand, but Javert recognized it. Monsieur le Maire wished to adjust his collar, a frequent gesture of his, but his instincts held him back. Because he was Jean Valjean again. That man knew how the clinking of cuffs around a strong man's hands unnerved jailers, how likely they were to engage in violent reprimand if he moved. They were falling back through time, and if he could not stop it, Javert knew they would land in hell.

"No, Monsieur," he said. His mouth was full of sand, but he must speak. "You should not attempt to... I have done you wrong, and now we will both pay the price."

"Javert, there is no need."

But he could not listen to such kind words, not now. He turned away, tried to fill himself with ice again. The river was waiting, but this death he did not deserve to hurry along.

"What are the charges?" he asked, catching Sauveterre's gaze.

"Corruption. Forged papers. Harbouring a fugitive." He pursed his lips as some of the officers whispered another word, laughter spreading through the room. A dark frown, and the men fell silent. "We are investigating bribery as well," Sauveterre said, raising an eyebrow questioningly.

He shook his head, mute; not the last, never.

The senior inspector nodded, apparently satisfied. "No, I thought not. Greed never was your vice, Javert," he said, and gestured to his men to take them away for questioning.

Perhaps Monsieur le Maire called something, but he could no longer hear him. The river carried him away as it hadn't for lifetimes, his senses drowning in mud and silt, all of Javert drowning in despair.

It ended quickly after that. Javert would answer no questions and the trial was swiftly prepared.

When the first witness was brought in, Javert was surprised to vaguely recognize him from the Thénardier's inn. A disgusting man, drunkard and worse, who had been cleaned up, dressed in finery and put on the stand. Here, he called himself Monsieur Jondrette, and was willing to swear up and down that he'd seen Javert accept 'suspicious packages' from the mayor.

Inspector Sauveterre followed, his testimony delivered in short and concise terms. He explained how a former convict from Toulon had appeared before him (to soothe his guilty conscience, he'd claimed) and revealed that the man calling himself M. Madeleine was in truth an old con from the chain-gang. Sauveterre had dismissed him, only for the man to provide a note. Since it was written in a hand startlingly like that of a trusted officer of the law and named several names, he had felt pressed to show it to the prefect, despite its dubious origins. An investigation had been opened.

Officer Dubois appeared and spoke with great animation about how there had always been something eerie about Inspector Javert. He spent considerable time describing how he seemed to know too much about all the goings-on in the town from his first day, especially on any matter pertaining to the mayor, and how he could walk straight into an argument and collar the guilty party without asking as much as one question.

"We weren't at all surprised when that old drifter recognized him from Toulon and said he was a bohemian brat born in there," he finished his testimony, wrinkling his nose. "Blood will tell, your honours, won't it? Like seeks like, and all that, no?"

Then several witnesses who all testified that the mayor and the inspector, both renowned loners, had quickly taken to each others company and spent many a late evening together. Some would not admit to having seen anything more suspicious than that, but two made wild insinuations on everything from their lack of character and immoral ways, to the huge amount of smuggling they controlled together. Officer Martel was one of them.

Javert remembered him among the working ladies; eyes looking too closely, hands grabbing too eagerly. A behaviour that shamed the entire force, yet bothered no-one, for who looks at one more man turned beast amongst the whores? Not even him, so long ago... not the Javert who was happy to follow the letter of the law.

Monsieur le Maire, no, Jean Valjean was displayed before the court. The scars on his wrists and ankles were pointed out, the brand on his chest examined and the faint limp he suffered demonstrated. Not one of the citizens would meet his eyes, not even when he confessed to all except to the insinuations that Inspector Javert had knowledge of his deceit.

Said former Inspector refused to speak, not answering any of the questions shouted into his face. He had nothing to say, not in defence nor condemnation.

For had he not stolen, if not in this life, then the one before? There had never been bribes taken from the mayor, perhaps, but not turning over the counterfeit money he had confiscated was an equal crime. Had he not lied, had he not planned to drive the mayor from the town with underhanded means to save his own worthless soul?

Only on the last day of the trial did Javert manage to shake off the worst of the lethargy filling him. It was the sight of a familiar pair of leering faces staring at him from the other side of the aisle, their jackal souls not hidden by any amount of make-up or lace.

How, he wondered for a bewildered moment, how had they managed to elevate themselves so far, even if only for one day? The titillating scandal of seeing not one, but two pillars of community fall had drawn every gawker from far and wide. There was no possible way that such scum of the street as those two could find places in the first row on this day of the final verdict!

Javert felt the eyes of the guards follow his movements, and tried to still himself. Pleased with his reaction, Mme Thénardier turned to the side and whispered something to her husband, which caused him to snigger loudly. She then leaned back, badly hid her face with a fan and hissed a few words to the well-dressed gentleman next to her husband...

The same well-dressed gentleman, in fact, who Javert recalled seeing since the first day of the trial. Whose finery contained several pieces of jewellery, whose walking stick was ostentatious in its gold-and-enamel décor, and who wore a ring with the insignia of the stone-cutters' guild. A man whom he had seen conversing with the judges two days earlier, a man who would doubtlessly profit from a rival failing. Who might even, with this scandal to ease his way, gain control of both the factories and M. Madeleine's patent for creating jet.

A man whose pockets were full enough to satisfy even the Thénardiers' greed, and whose influence would keep them safe from the law. The same law which Javert had used as a bludgeon, to threaten them to give up the girl, to drive them from their homes, and which they had now turned against him. Mme Thénardier noticed his stare, and blew him a mocking kiss.

Javert tasted blood.

He must bide his time. He ought to wait until death freed him from his chains. It should not take long now, for there were shadows creeping up over the world, features growing hazy as the river of death invaded this doomed reality. But then, if he was doomed already...

Javert could not draw a proper breath, but he no longer needed air; when all the world had gone to hell, he too could become a demon. They had tried to take everything from him, and he saw no reason to leave them anything in turn.

His good behaviour and Sauveterre's lingering regard had kept the bailiffs from chaining him too hard. There were no fetters around his ankles, nothing to keep him from leaping up and throttling the hateful innkeeper, from breaking his neck with his bare hands. Perhaps he'd even have time to grab the wife before they brought him down, before they had to kill him. Let others handle grace and mercy. Sisyphus was already in hell, and he would crush his fellow inmates with the boulder before he allowed himself to forget that.

There was a jangle of chains and Javert felt the press of a foot against his leg. He did not want to look back, he did not want to see those eyes so full of piety. But he had erred, again. He had brought Monsieur le Maire to this, and he owed a debt. So he turned, and beheld Valjean, who shook his head; a warning and a plea. He opened his mouth to protest, tasted the river, and the only thing he could think to ask was 'why'?

Whatever Valjean tried to tell him, Javert could not read it in his eyes. Here, before the judges, there was no possibility to speak and on the other side of death, whatever this man wished to tell him would be gone, impossible to recall. He would never be taken to task; so easy to escape those painful words with one moment of satisfying rage.

The Thénardiers lived.

Valjean, the repeat offender, was sentenced to a lifetime of hard labour. Javert, the corrupt official, was sentenced to twenty years of the same.

There was a crowd waiting behind the courthouse, Fantine among them. She held a jet-beaded rosary in her hands and tears spilled down her cheeks when she saw them. "I will pray for you, Messieurs," she called, "may sweet Jesus guard your souls!" At her feet, little Cosette echoed her words. To Javert's surprise, they were not the only ones. As they were ushered towards the closed cart, more and more voices called out – prayers, well-wishes, angry shouts, calls for mercy... Dozens of work-roughened throats, having escaped their labours for one day to make their farewells and show their gratitude. And while most called to M Madeleine, there were among the distraught faces some that sought Javert's eyes.

"Thank you!" that blessed fool called to them, using the mayor's dignified voice for one last time. "Thank you for your forgiveness, and may the Lord shelter us all!"

Javert could not answer, but he managed an awkward bow despite the bailiff's grip on his arms. He wished, such an idiotic thought to have, that he could make clear to Cosette that even with this end, the law was just... That she must remain within its shelter all her life.

They were sat on hard wooden benches, their chains fastened to the walls. When the door shut between them and the daylight, Javert could still hear the indistinct noise of the crowd. The wagon jerked to a start, rattling slowly through Montreuil-sur-Mer and out through its gates, leaving behind the town and all of its inhabitants.

In the sparse light, Valjean was a shadow, his head bent over his hands; perhaps in prayer, perhaps in despair.

Javert closed his eyes and leaned back against the hard wood. From the depths of his memories, the stench and noise of prison rose up. It mixed with the tarry smell of the wagon, where so many fears and regrets had been sweated out. The stench flew together with the heavy, choking river-water until it felt as if the weight of his memories would crush his soul.

"So here we are, then," Valjean said, his voice a spear through the oppressive shadows growing around Javert. He must still have been looking down at his hands, because Javert heard no noise from the chains around them; despite that, his voice carried no blame.

"Here we are," he answered. "On the road to hell."

"I have tried to recall what I feared most in jail," Valjean said slowly, "but I cannot. Is it the work, the whip, the fetters? The glowing iron, with which they will brand me again? It has all grown together in my mind, twenty years of despair, and I do not know if I – should I steel myself, Javert? Should I pray for deliverance? Or should I put it all away, and sharpen my mind, ready myself for the moment of escape?"

"You plan to escape?" Now, he opened his eyes and took in the man before him.

With a snort, Valjean lifted his head, and unless he was wholly mistaken the clasped hands had turned into clenched fists. His knee bumped against Javert's and he fairly spat out the words. "Of course I plan to escape! You might crave death for this dishonour, but I have not struggled for so long only to give it all up now!"

"Then why did you stop me, in the courtroom? Would not chaos have aided you?" Not, Javert realized, that he would have come far, chained at hand and feet.

"I may be strong, but even I cannot break chains with my bare hands," Valjean said. "Besides, I needed to ask you, if..." He coughed, awkward suddenly.

Javert waited. They had time, if nothing else.

"Ah, it interests me to know, how did you come to your conclusions?"

An old question, an old answer. "I have a good memory for faces. There was your strength, Monsieur, there was your limp; you heard all my suspicions during the trial."

"Then why did you let it be?" he whispered. "What held you back?"

For a moment, Javert considered lying, imagined saying the lines he had once so meticulously planned: He'd had no proof, which was why he had created the list, to sort out his mind. He could not believe that a peasant such as Jean Valjean could rise to the stature of a mayor, not without bringing disaster with him. He had investigated, had found no crime, and when his notes disappeared, he had closed the book on the matter.

But schemes and deceit had brought them here, and Javert was tired unto death of lying.

"Because I no longer _care_! Whatever your past, you are a good man! You did the town good, you did the state proud, you were my superior and the best I have ever known. If you have served nineteen years for your crime, then why could I not in good conscience let you live this life in peace?" His voice was rising, he knew, but he could no longer hold back his frustration. "If I brought you before justice, I would have done wrong against the laws of God, for you do not deserve these chains! When I left you in peace, I broke the laws of man, and for that I deserve to be punished, but you? No! You, Monsieur le Maire, deserve no more punishment –"

"Do not call me that again!" Valjean cried. "I hate to hear those words from you."

If he had grown wings and flown to heaven, Javert would not have been more flabbergasted. Again, the only thing he could think to ask was 'why'?

"I did not care when we were speaking of official matters," Valjean said, the gloom obscuring his features from Javert, "but I grew to hate it at other times. Every time you said it, I recalled how I was deceiving you."

"But I knew," Javert mumbled.

Valjean shrugged. "I did not. You named me friend, as I did you. When you praised my moral standing –"

"I never!"

"Then why did you always defer to me when we spoke of Grace? Why did you try to defend me against tricks and lies as if you considered me too pure to handle them? Javert, I can hear you turn away, and I will not have it. We're rolling into hell on Earth, but at least we can speak clearly tonight! I called you friend, believing all the while that I was lying to you, that my real name would disgust you. There was a chain choking 'Monsieur le Maire' and it grew heavier every time we spoke as friends."

"Then I have wronged you in turn, have I not, Valjean? You speak of me as your protector, but this time, I brought your doom. Because the only way to bring law and mercy into harmony was to try and hide you! But I was stupid enough to trust in blind chance and craven souls to arrange matters. I thought only of my escape, without seeing how I doomed us both with my lies!"

"Do you think I care? You speak to _me_ of fateful mistakes? Sometimes, it feels as if my life was nothing but a chain of such! But now, I will bear this guilt no longer. Hear me out, Javert! I have money stashed away," Valjean said, his voice falling to a whisper, "and I have learned a great deal about hiding. If God grants me but a chance, I shall flee and make a new life again."

He reached forward as far as his bonds allowed and Javert saw with wonder how Valjean's fingers seemed to strain towards his own. Slowly, half in a dream, he lifted his own hands, stretching the chains tight, and felt rough fingers stroke against his own.

"I, too, have deceived you," Javert whispered.

"So we both lied, and not only to the great faceless behemoth called law," Valjean admitted, "but to each other. Perhaps that was our sin."

"Perhaps that was our sin in this life... You would make a difference, there? Between lying to the law and," he pulled his hands back, heard Valjean's hiss of breath and, slowly, found his touch again. "Lying to a friend?"

"Yes. Oh, yes! I could live the lie an eternity, if but one friendly soul knew my true name," Valjean answered, and Javert thought he was right. When had he allowed himself to forget? When had Monsieur Madeleine grown so large in his eyes, that he stopped seeing Jean Valjean?

"Now, we are freed from the shackles of our lies... if I can free us from the shackles of the state, will you follow me, Javert?"

And Javert closed his eyes, and felt the river rise cool and refreshing around him, another mistake washed away, another step taken. "If not in this life, Monsieur, then in the next."

They fell silent then, all their words spent, with only the points of their knees and the tips of their fingers touching.

When, many hard and heavy days later, Valjean asked if he could swim, when Javert did not have time to answer before a guard came too close, when their chains broke and strong hands pushed him into the water, then Javert learned that drowning in the sea was almost equal in horror and fright to drowning in the Seine. But this was not the water of his despair, and so he sank towards death and hope alike.

* * *

Two lifetimes lived, two deaths endured, and what had it left him with? A body that was breaking down from all the death laid on it and a heart that had been cracked open, left defenceless. But perhaps, Javert prayed, another road had opened, and there were new possibilities before him waiting to be explored.

That said, not much would happen if he continued to woolgather like this, except that he would be late for his introductions. Freshly dead or not, that would not do.

He managed to lurch out of bed and gingerly moved to the washbasin. The sight of the water combined with the pervasive scent of the sea in the air was enough to bring him back to the salt-stained deck again, Valjean's hand resting against his back; not yet pushing, only waiting, waiting for the moment of escape.

Then, the mirage lifted. Montreuil-sur-Mer and the inn, the here and the now, appeared and Javert began to wash himself with the utmost care.

As he scraped the razor down his cheek, it felt as if he was scraping away the sediment of death and guilt with it. He'd made mistakes; so be it, he'd paid dearly for them all. He'd learned some harsh lesson, but he'd also learned of... Javert's mind shied away from the thought; the implications too large to grasp on this morning when his time was already running short.

He should focus on the central issues, he thought, putting on his trousers and the, once again, new shirt. No short-cuts for Inspector Javert, no thinking that he could swan through his duties by relying on his foreknowledge. Tying his cravat a bit too strictly, Javert uneasily recalled how he had unwittingly sown seeds of conflict in his last life. His mood only further soured when he considered those men who had helped them grow and bear such ill fruits.

While he knew there was the beginnings of a decent inspector well-hidden beneath that young moron Dubois' mop of hair, he'd have a hard time not simply decking Martel the next time he saw the louse. A below-average officer whose vicious temper caused problems enough, even without the arguments his lecherous behaviour ignited in lifetime after lifetime. And he had the gall to accuse Javert and Monsieur le Maire! Of smuggling, which Martel had suddenly brought up during the trial, smuggling and – Pfah! That was not illegal, anyway, and the Law did not care for morals in that sense.

The matter of smuggled goods, on the other hand, was firmly within the purview of the courts. This time the magistrates had chosen to leave the issue aside due to lack of evidence, but... Now that Javert thought about it, it was quite odd that the point had been brought up at all; especially with overwhelming evidence on all other counts.

Javert tried to recall whether anyone had asked Martel about it specifically, or if he had simply babbled. The other witness who had mentioned it had appeared a half-idiot, at least. He might well have been a drunk bought for a pittance in the nearest seedy inn and had mostly parroted what had been said before.

Not wanting to get ahead of himself, Javert tried hard to recall anything he or the mayor might have done, that suggested _smuggling _in particular. Or perhaps, he considered, there lay something else buried here? A man with a guilty conscience would often see his particular crime mirrored around him. It was worth investigating – and perhaps dreaming of putting the cuffs on that toad of a 'policeman' would keep Javert from foolish overreactions.

A further knock sounded on his door, the cadence of the knocker identifying one of his men. Javert straightened, did his best to ignore the heaviness of his limbs. Another lifetime of toil before he could hope for the sweet silence of the grave.

Despite his worries and the lingering pain of his body, he found his mind largely untroubled as he walked through the familiar inn. He stopped for a moment, thanking the innkeeper for his services and his wife the outstanding freshness of the rooms, receiving a small package of dried lavender for his words. He found himself nodding at young François, who would become errand runner for the station in three months, and who had shed tears as they carted off Valjean and him off to Toulon.

His horse was there, perfectly saddled and tacked as always. Despite knowing this, he allowed himself a moment to inspect the animal, enjoying the feel of the reliable beast beneath his hand, its every cue familiar and fond after so many years together.

As the bells tolled the hour, he nodded to his troop and they sat up; time to take up his duties anew. The streets were full of mud, the beggars around the factory loud and pitiful as always, and he lacked a clear plan to bring Valjean and Cosette together at the right time... and yet, when Javert looked around at his town, he knew again that he was privileged to be its protector.

And, this afternoon, he would make his introductions to Monsieur le Maire. At that thought, the last phantom pains cleared from him.


	4. The yoke easy, the burden never light

**The sixteenth time**

The hour was late. The grand building lay almost deserted when Javert for the first time in over forty years walked up the marble stairs of the Palais de Justice. The echoes of his steps flew like unruly souls through the empty rooms until they were swallowed by the shadows. Only a few oil lamps were kept lit throughout the night; small, flickering lights to guide the guards keeping watch in the heart of Law. As he reached higher and higher levels, the grand décor became stripped down, turned functional and sparse.

He walked through an office, the lock as easy to jiggle loose as he recalled; found the open entrance to the attics. Bending low to get through the doorway, he followed a cramped corridor until his fingers found the rougher texture of a small door that would, if his memory served, give him access to the roof.

Hand still upon the door, Javert paused.

When he'd finished his daily report and, instead of returning home, had sat at a spare desk and waited for silence to fall over the building, it had been the whisper of instinct that had made him remain. It was not an impulse he wished to examine; all he knew was that this had been a pilgrimage he had craved for years.

Now, in the muggy darkness, he could no more hide from the fear which had grown in him with every step upwards he'd taken... When he opened the door, would he see Paris? Would he be able to turn the corner and behold the graceful majesty of the Notre Dame bathed in moonlight... or would his eyes only find the familiar roofs of Montreuil-sur-Mer?

Was he slowly climbing out of purgatory or were all his hopes nothing but a cruel trick of hell?

After his disastrous attempt at manipulation, which had led to nothing but disgrace and prison, it had taken a further four deaths before he had managed to come forward. The accumulated lifetime counted almost twenty years spent struggling with the truth and his regrets. Then, finally, when he was beginning to succumb to despair, events had come together as they should and thrown him into the wild land of a future beyond the town.

In his current life, when Monsieur le Maire was forced to leave Montreuil-sur-Mer, he was not widely renounced. Nor did he leave Cosette to another for raising; they travelled away together. Behind them, they left Javert behind, alive and trembling on the border of the unknown; a state he had been in his entire first lifetime, but which was unfamiliar and disturbing to him now.

The lives before had been a string of painful failures, each undermining his endurance and bleeding vigour from him. Javert's second attempt at intrigue had failed much like the first, with scandal threatening both him and the mayor. He'd not waited for the end to catch them this time, had instead chosen the mercy of the straight-razor when the river began to call in his mind.

The third try had not involved the Thénardiers, but gone instead through the Magistrates at Champmathieu's trial. Javert re-discovered a painful truth here: to cast suspicion was easy, to stem the tide of ill-will far more difficult. One thing led to another, and once the investigation was under way, he began to hear the swell of the water.

The jailers who guarded a prison transport were not the best of shots, but they were well-armed and saw no need to spare their bullets. In the dark, in the confusion, that had been more than enough. Javert had fallen from one more life.

The next life, his actions were less an attempt to manipulate events and far more a desperate struggle to keep innocents from harm and protect Monsieur le Maire's honour. The first months had given him a small attempt at hope, then that too had ended in disaster.

Javert's harsh and pre-emptive measures against Martel had driven the officer to ruin. Whether he would fall to corruption or dishonour women in the future, he had not yet acted when Javert's action forced him from his position.

Vengeful and with nothing to lose, the former policeman retaliated with fire. Arson took Javert's home, and though he was not inside it at the time, Martel still achieved the full measure of his revenge.

That life had ended two days later, when the remains of Monsieur le Maire were finally dug out of the ashes. Mind blank and hand steady, Javert had tasted the barrel of his gun and dove into the dark, eager to escape the clamour of his heart.

Upon waking, he found himself heartsick and worn down. He had appealed to Valjean himself for advice... No, truthfully, he had needed something much more fundamental from him: hope. An abyss of despair was at his feet, and wherever Javert turned, failure seemed to await him.

To his deep regret, his worries caused him to forget how differently time was seen by those who did not remember each day as one already lived, hear each word spoken as an echo, see each pebble overturned in the light of tomorrow and yesterday at once. For Javert, it was too familiar: each sound and sight and scent and storm and dawn and the tolling of every bell, ringing and ringing in his soul until he knew not if he was awake or asleep, mad or damned or blessed, or anything at all. He knew only that he was in Montreuil-sur-Mer and Montreuil-sur-Mer had seeped into the depths of his soul and soon, nothing would be left of Javert.

But what was for him the unchangeable truth, was nothing but madness and conjecture for those living in proper time.

At three months into their acquaintance, he could no longer hide his agony. Monsieur le Maire, for all his polite words and gentle air, did not yet see Javert as anything but the hunting wolf waiting to drag him back to hell. He listened, but he did not hear. Madeleine's smile grew ever more strained until the Inspector broke off and walked flustered into the night, still lacking hope.

When dawn came, Valjean escaped, swift as a shadow and merciless as death.

It took a month to hunt him down, and when he had, Javert could only wish he'd chosen the path of the razor again. In the night, in their struggle, they had tumbled together from a bridge. Before his head smashed upon the rocks, the stone became the Seine and the moment stretched eternal, and he feared that he had inadvertently doomed Valjean to his own cursed fate.

Plagued by guilt, he withdrew from Monsieur le Maire in the next life. He had even considered trying to drown himself in the bottle when his duty was not enough. Laudanum he had already tasted; why not also the gin which kept the whores making merry throughout each bitter night?

What kept him in sobriety, hard to endure as it was, was the thought of one who would suffer while they drowned themselves, the whore and policeman alike; a memory of chilblains on small hands, of gaunt cheeks and listless eyes, looking at the world with jealousy and hunger.

First, he must find the girl, Javert told himself, then he could waste as many lives as he wanted. No, no, first he must save the mother, if it was not already too late. Then the girl, then the bottle, oblivion until the river took him again...

But like the Sisyphus he was, each step he took only made the mountain before him grow. The Thénardiers were not intimidated by a tired policeman and the woman followed when he brought back child. She harassed Fantine, tried to pressure her for more money and attempted to take what little she had left.

Javert's hatred for the Thénardier couple was growing deeper with each passing life. When he saw what was happening, his temper flared to life and he woke enough to drive the pest away. Now, Fantine was twice as grateful, and no more a fool than that she noticed how he suffered from some hidden ill.

She pulled him along when she took walks with Cosette, she complained and gossiped and laughed about the factory, and she never let him forget that only his intervention had saved both her daughter and herself.

"So tell me this then..." Fantine said one afternoon when he could not bother to make the pretence of hope. "Whose daughter are you willing to doom for your indulgences, Inspector?"

"None," he had answered, pride stung even through his armour of fatigue, "for I will continue to do my duty until I am lying in my grave."

Her huff had been astonishingly eloquent, considering the shortness of the sound itself. "Oh? Such words I would expect from the Inspector who rode to Montfermeil for a destitute woman's child, perhaps, but not from the man who doesn't even bother to take up his post when our most esteemed citizen is robbed while sleeping peacefully."

"What are you talking about?" Javert asked, lifting his eyes from the muddy road to look straight at her.

Fantine smirked, her one missing tooth seeming to echo her words in silent accusation. She leaned back on the bench they had silently made their own during these walks, and directed a far gentler smile at Cosette playing at her feet. When she spoke again, she held a most superior tone.

"So our dear Inspector has not heard? Tssk, I fear he will not need the spirits he keeps circling like a young buck with a twitchy doe, for his senses are already dull and drowning."

"State your meaning clearly, woman. I certainly have no need for your mockery today."

"Well, if you are awake again, I suppose I have nothing better to do than tell you; it is not as if anyone else will gossip with an ugly old hen like myself," she said, the gap-toothed grin so much more bitter this time. "Monsieur Madeleine did not come to the factory this morning, and, Inspector, I'm certain even you have noticed that few things keep him away from his duties? Why, he almost reminds me of a man of the law I heard spoken of once..."

Javert growled, and Cosette made her puppet shriek in response to it, before they both hid behind her mother's skirts. Proving herself a stalwart and wise choice of retreat, Fantine continued without noticeable worry.

"When the foreman sent a runner to our dear mayor's house, of course every tongue in the hall started to wag. But when the boy returned and said that the Mayor had fainted dead away and that the doctor was called –"

"_What?_"

Her hand, with strength belying it's thinness, kept a firm grip on the edge of Javert's coat. "Why, the roof could have fallen, and we would scarce have noticed. It was utter chaos, and the foreman himself rode off on a cart horse, and so he missed it when Monsieur Madeleine appeared in the factory!"

"He was up?" As Fantine nodded, he managed to take his seat again. "Well, what had happened?"

"You must first understand, my good Inspector, how the scene looked! Imagine," she spread her hands wide, "the entire factory at a standstill, with nothing but fears and rumours to hold us in our place! And then Monsieur le Maire storms in, with his coat buttoned wrong and his cravat left at home, and for a moment I thought that the roof was actually falling!"

"But what had happened?" Javert asked, almost reaching out to grab her by the bony shoulders and shake the truth out of her. "Tell me, damn you!"

Fantine clasped her hands together and her voice grew less elated as she finished her tale. "Patience, please, for I am near the end. Come, Cosette, sit with me – quick now, or I fear the Inspector shall have a fit. Monsieur Madeleine, he stumbles in and they flock about him, all the old ladies and young maids, but he pushes them away, climbs the stairs and do you know? For a moment he looked so lost I thought he might weep, and I recalled that I had seen a man with similar eyes only the day before. But, I see you are impatient, so let me continue. This he asks us: He says, nay, he _pleads_ that if anyone has a word or a whisper, the mere hint of an inkling about where his precious silver set has disappeared to, he will press them to his bosom and shower them in gold. But," she lowered her voice to a conspirational whisper, "we must not, for the love of sweet Jesus himself, not speak a word of this silver to the police, for it is his most treasured heirloom. And he fears that the thieves will panic and melt it down if they smell hunters circling. And that, says our dear Monsieur Madeleine, would be an even greater tragedy than never regaining the treasure for himself. So we all swore not to speak to the law of this horrible crime, and to ask around, to speak to our husbands and brothers; well, those that had any would. But for those who didn't, do you know what I thought we should do instead, ma petite?" she said and poked Cosette at the nose.

Her daughter shook her head, captivated by the tale. When Fantine bent down to whisper in her ear, Cosette's grip tightened around her doll, and she let out an excited squeak.

"I thought," Fantine whispered, "that since I had no brother and no husband, but I did have a dear friend who only pretended to be a policeman, when he was in truth a lost knight..."

"Oh! Oh, is it my knight?"

"Indeed, my dearest, and we both see how he flounders since the Thénardragon was vanquished, yes?" Cosette nodded, and Fantine stroked her hair, fond gaze aimed towards Javert's disappearing back, as he hurried to do his duty. "Well, there you have it, my treasure. Our Inspecteur Chevalier brought you back to me, and drove off the dragon, so I knew that he needed to hear about Monsieur Madeleine's lost silver. Now he will not rest until he has found this treasure, too."

If Javert had heard those words, he might have scoffed and sworn, though perhaps he would not have cared to expose himself to Fantine's mocking after all. For he could not deny that he hardly slept nor ate until four days later, when he knocked on Monsieur le Maire's door and handed him a large sack of silver. The two candlesticks he had wrapped separately in his own coat, and he could not say what gave him more pleasure: to watch Monsieur Madeleine unwrap the blue bundle and lift them out with the reverence offered only to holy relics and sheer Venetian glass, or to tell the long tale of how he had learned of their importance, while Jean Valjean sat opposite him and listened to his confession without a hint of fear or censure in his eyes.

Though he did not find the solution to his problem in that life, Javert went easy into the night when Fate judged his attempt and sent him to his death. When he next awoke, he felt barely weighted down by the years and hope had filled him anew.

As if he had before been stumbling blind through a darkened room led only by a torn map and someone had suddenly taken him by the hand and led him out into the sun, events in the life after flowed smoother.

Knowing and approving of Fantine's sharp tongue, he spoke to the mayor the day after she had been fired. With the authority of Monsieur Madeleine backing her and an officer of law at her side, Fantine went to bring her daughter home. It had been an impressive display; Javert needed only to bare his teeth and rest a light hand on his rapier, while her words did a fair job of flaying even the Thénardiers' hardened hides.

Javert's friendship with a fallen factory girl, and his uncovering of a smuggling plot reaching high into the bourgeois layers of the town, did not make him popular among the upper classes. Despite this, Monsieur le Maire seemed to find amusement in his company. After they together brought about both a greatly improved poorhouse and set the foundation for a far-reaching sanitation project, he even declared him a trusted advisor. It earned Javert both scorn and jealousy, but elevated him in the eyes of his superiors in Paris.

It was thus from the high peaks in the hierarchy of Law that Javert received the carefully-worded warning which boiled down to this: Monsieur Madeleine's odd behaviour during the Valjean-Champmathieu affair had caused unfriendly eyes to start looking through his past.

And there, at the peak of success, he'd stumbled again.

They'd had a terrible row. Though the admission burned like acid, Javert knew that his actions had been cause, his own thoughtless words the origin of a great rift between them.

Before the night was ended, both Javert and Valjean spoke words meant to tear and maim. At that point in their friendship, they'd known far too well where to aim to draw blood from each other. If his own daggers were thrown in fear and, perhaps, a lingering hopelessness, he could only assume that Valjean's stemmed from old memories of flight and the sorrow of never seeing his work finished.

But truth was this: Javert had brought the message with more cheer than was warranted, his behaviour easy to interpret as sadistic glee.

When Valjean replied in understandable anger to the messenger asking him to close this chapter of his life, Javert had answered with all the bitterness of purgatory in his words. After that evening, they had not exchanged another word in private again, the polite phrases of society ringing hollow and cold when they could not avoid uttering them.

Monsieur le Maire left, nevertheless. He did not sneak out as a thief in the night but departed as an elderly man seeking a more restful life. He left behind a flourishing town with the dream of a better future planted.

In a well-kept grave, rested the lowly factory worker whom the mayor had befriended. Town gossip knew he had cherished the young woman almost as a daughter, and nobody wondered overlong that the mayor brought Fantine's child with him, even if she was of lowest birth.

With his political influence fading fast, and only Montreuil-sur-Mer remembering and loving him for the lessons of hope he had taught, Monsieur Madeleine's enemies turned their eyes to more threatening prospects. His past remained buried; he was forgotten.

As for Javert, he remained in the town until he received orders to transfer to Paris, a steady if dour presence. To some of the citizens, it seemed as if the Inspector was a monument raised in the mayor's honour, there to remind those grown too fond of gleaming gold that mercy and justice sown together could raise a crop far richer than anything born from greed.

Now, with ten years of this life behind him, Javert stood trembling in the dark, his soul torn between wildest hope and animal fear.

"Lord above," he whispered, eyes staring into the cycles of the past while his hand slowly, slowly pressed down on the creaking handle, "have mercy on this lost soul. Have patience with my mistakes, and grant me a star to follow, for I have long been floundering in the dark. Please, Lord, forgive me my trespasses, and allow me this step towards your light."

The sky that met him was endless and deep, the sentinels of eternity shining down on his face as he walked outside and beheld the majesty of Notre Dame beneath the stars.

Out there, Valjean was waiting, that last quarrel between them as bitter as the river of death. But he had been given a taste of hope, and so Javert stepped up to the edge and looked down without fear.

"Let me find him, my Lord, please let me not fall without making amends..." And then he closed his eyes, a tired smile playing on his lips. "For he swore to free me from my chains, if not in this life, than the next and so I too must swear: to follow without rest, until we might both keep our promises before God."

That Jean Valjean was still in Paris, Javert did not doubt. If he could not abandon the city even when the law had been searching for him with punishment in mind, he'd surely remain in it now. He must have built himself a new alias, since there remained no trace of Monsieur Madeleine beyond fond whispers back in Montreuil-sur-Mer.

During the first months after he had left the town, 'Madeleine' had travelled through southern France with his new ward. He had issued instructions to his man concerning the sale of the remaining factories, and through encouraging letters, kept the civic projects going until the new leaders of the town became secure in their positions.

Even Javert had received one short note, passed on through the mayor's lawyer a few days before the closing sale. It formally asked for his continual support regarding the rebuild of the poorhouse. The carefully impersonal language and elegant, but empty, words of farewell stung worse than no contact at all. Javert, in turn, answered with a one-word missive. Then, in a fit of rue, he had personally gone to each of the magistrates involved and spoken for the matter with as much eloquence as he possessed.

After all his businesses and belongings were sold off, M. Madeleine made his permanent residence in Paris. His steady stream of letters to Montreuil-sur-Mer slowed, became a trickle. The frequent missives with advice turned into rare letters of encouragement. As the years passed, they became season's greetings with no return address.

To the best of Javert's knowledge, the last citizens of Montreuil-sur-Mer had lost contact with their old mayor approximately three years after Valjean moved away, though he had his suspicions regarding the nuns at the hospital, who in turn refused to tell. His inquiries within the force had only confirmed his suspicion: M. Madeleine was gone and Jean Valjean had reinvented himself into another man.

Javert made several visits to the area around the Parisian convent where he had once lost Valjean, in that first, distant life. While he did receive the answer to one old question upon recognizing the convent gardener, he came no closer to finding his quarry.

He kept close watch on the calendar which brought him ever nearer June of 1832. As spring blossomed, Javert had almost resigned himself to not finding Valjean until the night of the barricades, when he would doubtlessly be shot by friendly fire or something equally ignoble. That said, he found it hard to quench all optimism, for had he not survived the first time despite much worse circumstances? Perhaps, somehow, fate would let him go free now that he had brought all the players out of Montreuil-sur-Mer.

Until that night of judgement, he intended to spend every free moment walking through the streets and narrow alleys of Paris, gazing at society in all its filth and beauty. True, he was keeping an eye out for Valjean, but he would not deny the simple joy he felt in drinking in a thousand new sights wherever he turned. The world had changed, was changing each day, and every soul around him carried a new story waiting to be discovered! Javert imagined that he might spend five hundred years exploring Paris before once again finding himself condemned to an eternal déjà vu where every face and every corner was an echo of an echo, the repetition a nightmare in itself.

In Paris, there were so many new tales to hear and he who had never bothered to listen before, now wished to learn of them all.

There was pain and poverty around him; the same old ills that had plagued mankind since the Fall. He'd heard it all before, he saw it every day as a policeman. But there was more, a thousand clever solutions hidden among the alleys, a million little delights that glimmered like a rainbow breaking out from a drop of water pearling on a filthy window. Paris, a world of its own, surely a world grand enough to shelter him from tedium!

It was this thought, of how many lifetimes he might spend in this swarming hive of humanity, learning to read its moods and secrets, that gave him comfort while summer broke around him. Javert tried to resign himself in preparation for a new round coming, though he still fretted at the short time he would have to set things right with this Valjean.

On day in late May, fate proved that lenience could be found for sinners too. He would not be forced to try untangle all the threads of his life in one violent night – not if he could put the clues together in time.

During an investigation concerning a series of burglaries, Javert had reason to visit an address on Rue de Vaugirard. After he was finished questioning the witnesses, he decided to enjoy the sun and take lunch in the nearby Jardin de Luxembourg. Here, among the soothing green gardens, fate handed him his boon. He almost missed it at first, for his eyes slid over the young man walking past his bench until the youth passed him a third time.

The moment of recognition was no flash from above, for his memories of the names and faces of the rebellious youths were hazy; the years had been long and the people of Montreuil-sur-Mer had grown large in his mind. The way the students had scrambled his brains (with his own nightstick!) did nothing to clarify his memories of the night.

So it took until the third pass for his policeman's instincts to wake to life. When Javert took a proper look at the unhappy youth who stared at every bush and shadow as if they hid his life's savings, something rose out of the muddy past. The man was wearing the tricolour cockade, a look currently too common among the student set for Javert's tastes, and was dressed in worn clothes that still betrayed their original fine quality. Beyond that, there was only the vaguest familiarity about the worried tilt of the his mouth and the manner in which he walked, but Javert had learned to be sensitive to the throw of fate's dice. Today, he believed he heard them rattle at the passing of the youth.

Folding away the remains of his lunch, he put on his hat and caught up with the young man. "Pardon, Monsieur! You seem agitated. Might I be of assistance? I am Inspector Javert of the Paris police."

At first, the young man attempted to wave him off, clearly possessing his type's disdain for representatives of the law. But when his hand happened to brush against a white handkerchief sticking out of his pocket, his face took on a soppy look and he began to speak; no longer the rebel, but fully the lovelorn youth. He introduced himself as Marius Pontmercy and admitted that he was looking for a young woman, often seen in the park together with an older man whom he assumed to be her father.

Though his description was flowery, Javert could recognize enough of Cosette in it for his heart to begin to beat at a faster rhythm. Further questions regarding her father only strengthened his suspicions.

Unfortunately, Pontmercy had never learned the name of his target of admiration, nor had he ever managed to follow his intended. From the way he spoke, Javert gained the impression that he had _attempted_ to once or twice, which may have contributed to Valjean no longer bringing Cosette for constitutionals in the park. The realization that Javert might well have run into Valjean himself, if it hadn't been for this foolish amateur, made him bite back several harsh words, but he forced himself to silence.

His reward was a description of how Cosette looked as a grown woman in this life, and a hint of where they were, or had been, living. Since the young man's thin excuse for hunting the girl was to return her lost handkerchief, Javert did promise to mention Pontmercy's name to her if he happened to run into the pair. Taking down Pontmercy's name and address and mentally assigning one of the police spies to keep an eye on him and his associates, he bade him farewell and returned to his duties.

He would return to the precinct, write his report, and update himself on the events in the Guérin case. And then... Inspector Javert's grin was wolfish enough that the two matrons who spotted it took a simultaneous step backwards, their full baskets colliding so that an apple fell into the gutter.

It had been long since he'd had an opportunity to properly hunt Jean Valjean. Though the experience was in no way new, it filled Javert with even more elation than he'd enjoyed at expanding his prison. Because Valjean, no matter how many times nor in what circumstances they collided, was never boring and never quite safe.

What a young man's love-fevered brain could not manage proved an easy task for the police. Yes, the local constable replied when Javert questioned him, there was a man and a girl matching that description living in the area, though he hadn't seen either of them for a while. No, neither was known to the law, but the constable recalled them well, since the man especially was a queer old type. He possessed considerable means but spent most of his time among the lowest of the low, giving alms and speaking of God's mercy. Once it had been established that he wasn't involved in fencing stolen goods, the law had ignored him.

Further investigations led Javert to an old priest at the church of St. Jacques du Haut Pas. Though halfway deaf, the priest was more than happy to ramble on about Monsieur Fabre, a gentleman of means who co-operated with the church to fund free schooling for the poorest children. His daughter added her own services by instructing the girls with their sums, being a surprisingly able and strict taskmaster for her age. She would also sometimes assist in scripture-readings with the children, if Javert understood the priest correctly. The girl was apparently also an angel of patience who could explain the Good Book so the lowest gamin could appreciate its message.

He received an address on Rue Plumet, along with the sad message that Monsieur Fabre had, for reasons of health, given up his engagements at the church for the summer. According to the priest, he had mention going on a journey in the hope that a change of air would revive him.

While Javert couldn't exactly fault a father for wanting to take his child away from the restless, cholera-stricken city, he had no wish to fall down dead because Valjean wasn't where he was supposed to be on the night of the barricades. As soon as he managed to extricate himself from the talkative old man, he set off for Rue Plumet no. 7 at his best speed.

A brisk walk later, the summer evening was falling around him when he knocked on Valjean's gate. The lack of answer didn't deter him. Javert only hammered louder until a sour woman appeared and told him off: Monsieur Fabre and his daughter had left for Provence this morning, and she'd appreciate him not making such a racket by the door!

Feeling as if he had watched his only lifeline come loose and be washed away by the stream, Javert muttered something about a promise from a young man and a handkerchief lost. To his eternal surprise, this mellowed the woman somewhat. Sensing her friendly interest, he hurried to tell her the whole story. Perhaps he made a minor exaggeration about the level of compassion he'd felt for Pontmercy's plight, but he felt it was forgiveable under the circumstances.

"Young love," she sighed, "so foolish, yet so sweet!" She patted her apron pocket until she found a small notebook and peered at it in the dim light of the street lamp. "I suppose an old soul such as myself shouldn't stand in the way, then... Lesse here..."

"Madame, do you have an address for Provence?" Javert asked, trying to stifle his excitement. He could still make it before the sixth of June!

"Provence? Oh, no, begging your pardon Monsieur, that was a little fib. Monsieur Fabre asked me to tell it, if any unsavoury elements came looking for him. Thought he had gone into debt, y'see. The dear man is so generous with his coin, I feared he had been cheated out of every last sou!"

A valid worry, Javert acknowledged while he swore high and low that he meant for no harm to come to the good Monsieur. Though, if his suspicions proved correct, the unsavoury elements Valjean had fled from were neither debtors nor the law, but the same lovesick boy whose story had just bought Javert this address.

Tipping his hat to Fate and the way it could pile a staggering tower of coincidences to build a bridge into the future, Javert left. In his white-knuckled hand, he carried a note containing the scribbled words _Passage Saint-Sébastien 9_.

With an eye to the darkening sky, he hailed a cab and took his seat, mind swirling with words and apologies that had gone unsaid for too long already.

When finally he arrived at the street, paid the cab, found the house, and threatened the doorkeeper to be let in, the note was crumpled to a sodden ball and all his plans were scattered to the wind. Javert no longer wanted to see this man who so disrupted his fate, but he could no more stop his hand from knocking than he could remain in the peace of death's embrace.

A moment of silence, the turning of a lock, and the door slid open.

"Val–" The word died in his throat and Javert grasped for the door frame before he fell down where he stood.

The young woman staring at him in puzzlement could not possibly be Fantine's daughter.

He had only observed Cosette as a grown woman for a few short moments, but even at the distance of decades he remembered a delicate, rosy-cheeked creature. The blonde girl he'd known in Montreuil-sur-Mer fit perfectly with that memory.

Whatever changes this life had wrought, it was impossible she'd grown into this dark-haired, statuesque woman!

"Who are you?" she asked, eyes narrowing in suspicion at his behaviour. "What do you want here?"

Javert floundered for words, before he managed to croak out the least suspicious question in his mind. "Are you Monsieur," his mind scrabbled for the appropriate pseudonym, "Fabre's daughter?"

She huffed and nodded once, a sharp little movement as if she challenged him to protest. "What business is that of yours?"

Speechless and lost, Javert shook his head and prepared to leave, if he could but make his legs obey him. What could he say, what could he do? Nothing, but begin his search all over with little hope of finding Valjean before the barricades rose in the night. Nothing, except fail and die once more.

Then an angel entered the hallway, a pale wisp of a girl who gazed upon him for a long moment, before her face bloomed in happy recognition. "Inspector Javert! Oh, it's been years!"

The darker girl frowned. "You know this man?"

"Of course I do," Cosette said, for this was her, from the top of her blond head down to the light steps with which she now came up to him, gently pushing the other girl aside. "Éponine, this is Inspector Javert, an old friend of both my mama and papa!"

"Éponine?" Javert took another look at the taller girl, at her carefully curled dark hair and the way her dress was cut to flatter, the deep teal colour embellishing her elegance. And his memory provided him with two images; a small, spoiled child in dark blue ruffles, and another... Not a young lady, that one, but a swarthy, sharp-tongued creature who spied for her father's gang and might well have gone other errands for him in the night. "Éponine _Thénardier_?"

Both girls blanched, and Éponine stepped back as if he'd slapped them.

"I'm not!" she protested, voice rising into shrillness as she continued, "I am not that man's daughter any more! And you shan't take me back!"

"No!" Cosette cried. "Trust me, Éponine, the Inspector would never do such a thing!"

"I'd rather cut my hand off than let it give anything to that innkeeper," Javert agreed. Belatedly realizing that he was speaking to two young ladies, he took off his hat and made an awkward bow.

"Please forgive me, mademoiselle, for upsetting you so. I merely came here to seek your father." He looked between the two again. "It was the surprise at meeting you, when I had expected only Mlle Cosette, which caused my rudeness. I know of your... former caretakers, and I would never attempt to force your return."

"Oh." Mollified and slightly embarrassed, Éponine stepped aside. "I should ask your pardon too, Monsieur. Papa always chides me for my suspicious ways."

"Please, come in, Inspector," Cosette added. "It is only us here at the moment, but papa is sure to return soon. Perhaps you could join us for dinner when he comes back?"

Alone at night, with two young ladies? Finding himself caught in the dilemma of appropriate behaviour, versus his fervent need to see Valjean as soon as possible, Javert tried to prevaricate.

This did not seem to amuse the ladies, because soon Éponine rolled her eyes, grabbed his arm and pulled him inside. Cosette sneaked behind him and closed the door, then turned to him with a sweet smile.

"I am so happy to see you again, Inspector! I remember when you used to come walking with mama and me. Please, you must tell me everything about Montreuil-sur-Mer, I have missed it so! Is the hospital finished? Does the baker behind the factory still make that wonderful brioche? And..." Her voice fell and the blue eyes seemed to gain a different sheen. "Does someone still care for mama's grave? I asked the Sisters to ensure that she would have pink carnations with her, for she loved them so."

Even if he had not felt the daggers of Éponine's glare, Javert knew how he ought to answer that. "I know the Sisters still speak fondly of you, Mlle Cosette. I have no doubt that they have kept their promise. Your mother is at rest, child, and she surely knows of your affection."

Cosette gave him a shaky smile, then excused herself to prepare some refreshments. Meanwhile, Éponine showed him into the sitting room.

"So, you're the inspector that used to work in the town where papa was mayor before?" she asked, her voice falling towards the familiar cadence of the street. Javert gave her a suspicious look, and she winked back at him, unrepentant. "The place we're not allowed to ask about and where they've never returned for a visit, even when Cosette mopes around the entire month in which her dear mama passed away?"

"I find myself with many questions as well, especially concerning as to how you ended up with this family," Javert retorted.

"Yes, sometimes I wonder that myself..." she said, shaking her head slowly. "I'm willing to trade tales?"

"It would be my pleasure to tell you," much like pulling teeth, but he needed to know. "Please; ladies first."

The look she gave him made it clear that he had fooled no one, but she seemed willing to take his word. Whatever tales Cosette had told of him, they could not have been too bad. "To make a long story short, papa thought he should let Cosette's foster parents know that Fantine had passed away."

"Why in the world would he bother with that?"

She shrugged. "He gets these fancies. I also don't think he understood the depravity of their character until he met them in person."

Recalling that the mayor had not been the one to bring Cosette back from the Thénardiers' this time, he nodded in agreement. For a man such as Valjean, no reports would convince him of another's irredeemable faults. The witness of his own eyes would scarcely be enough for that.

"Well, the inn was failing badly," she continued, "because the council had levied more taxes, and repairs needed to be made. I suspect all kinds of debts were due as well. Things were bad when papa arrived, so of course the old man tried his usual tricks."

"I'm not in the least surprised," Javert groused. "Let me guess, Monsieur Ma – Fabre, meekly paid up and then gave them twice the asked for amount for your sake?"

"No!" Éponine sounded almost as baffled as Javert would've been. "I still don't know how he did it, but I watched papa outwit them both, ignoring every trick and hook, not losing as much as a button. And then, after they had spoken for a while, and after she tried her wiles, and he had grumbled about Fantine's outstanding debts without earning a sou for it, he simply took out a thousand Francs. They froze, just staring at it, and he put a hand on my head and asked if they were willing to speak plain now. And they... She asked," Éponine swallowed thickly, "she asked if he had another one of those, in case they could procure one more girl. But _he_ said that this, that I, was their daughter."

Her cheeks were stained red and her hands clenched tight on nothing; but she did not lie or try to distract him and Javert believed that he might understand her. By refusing to bow to past humiliations, by owning her shameful past, she was freeing herself from it.

She glared at him, daring Javert to condemn her with so much as a look, before she carried on.

"So he told papa, that for this, he'd better be prepared to pay at least the double if he wanted anything at all. And papa did, without speaking another word. Took out another bill and threw both on the table. Then he picked me up and carried me to a closed carriage and opened it and told me that my new sister was waiting inside and that we would go away now and never return."

"And I was, and we did," Cosette said, entering with the tea. She set it down on the table, and caressed Éponine's hair with obvious fondness before she sat down. "And so, we are sisters."

She too seemed prepared to challenge the Inspector if he insulted her sister in any way, but Cosette's eyes were far more expectant of his good behaviour than Éponine's scowl.

It became clear to Javert in that moment how much he'd missed during these five years. He had felt time lose all meaning and turn into a spiral of torment. It hadn't occurred to him that a few years could be enough for a child playing with dolls to grow into a young woman with clear strength of character.

"Then we have all, humble as man should be, one small claim on pride, for our achievements," Javert said and inclined his head towards Éponine. "For we have all distanced ourselves from our poor beginnings and risen to the company of lawful men and women."

"Inspector?" Cosette's eyebrows were almost at her hairline.

Words he had kept hidden for so long; strange, that their weight seemed so inconsequential now. Ah, but had not Valjean been the first person to whom he had admitted the truth of his heritage out of his own free will, and not just following his duty to a superior? Driven by rage he'd been then, but it had proven that revealing himself did not change who or what Javert was. Or what he could be...

Éponine was biting her lip, and he felt a strange kinship for this young girl who dared to defy the man of law by spilling open her old shame. She, too, had grown from the memory he held of her.

Javert spoke: "I will not try and console you, Mademoiselle, for the ones who bore you are crooks of the lowest kind. But my own origins are equally low. I was born inside a jail, my father a convict and my mother..." He shook his head; certain words he would not utter before these children. "I was given a few slim opportunities to rise, and I used them all." Though he had never acknowledged these opportunities in his first life, as if every gutter-rat was given even one chance to better themselves. "But it was my own choices, and my own efforts, that led me to where I am today."

He leaned back in the chair and watched the girls take it in. Cosette seemed surprised but – daughter of a factory worker, sister to a conman's child – she took it in stride. Éponine's reaction was stronger, her fists clenching and opening on air. He wondered why Valjean had not seen it fit to share his own humble beginnings to comfort the girl; had he then never told Cosette the truth in the first life either?

Perhaps sensing that her sister wished for the subject to change, Cosette served them tea. Then, she picked up the previous story. "We travelled on to Paris and began a new life as the Madeleine family. But only a few months later, papa began to look worried every time the post came in. And one day, when we were at school, a strange man came up and began asking me about papa and Éponine. Lucky for us, the Sisters chased him off, but when papa heard about it, he packed away all our things. We moved out after a week."

"To a new name, a new life," Javert guessed. "Fabre?"

"No, Leblanc. The men found us after a short time." Cosette patted Éponine's hand. "We moved once more. Taking the name Fabre, we lived in Lyon for one year, and when we returned to Paris, my sister and I only rarely went outside together."

Javert puzzled together the clues. "And that is why nobody speaks about Monsieur Fabre and his daughters. Although... It was you, Mlle Cosette, who taught the children about scripture? Yes, the Sisters always did praise you for that. Then, Mlle Éponine, it was you who assisted with the mathematics lessons?"

The girls nodded.

"If you found us through old Father Michél, I understand why you were confused," Éponine offered, her voice even and calm again. "He doesn't always make his counting examples much clearer."

Cosette hid a giggle at that.

Javert nodded, thoughtful. It was possible that the woman at Rue Plumet had spoken about daughters, with Javert too distracted to ask about it. That Pontmercy had never even mentioned a second girl... Then he recalled the blissfully stupid expression on the boy's face at the mere thought of Cosette's face. No, Valjean with another girl would be invisible to him.

"Now, Monsieur Inspector, I believe it was time for you to tell us about papa's past?"

"And Montreuil-sur-Mer," Cosette added.

Javert was about to distract them with the information that a student was mooning himself sick over Cosette back in the Jardin du Luxembourg, when sounds indicated that Valjean had returned.

While the girls went to greet their father, Javert remained behind, though he rose from the settee and went to stand the window. The night sky was visible as a narrow strip between the houses, and he took strength from its endless depths.

"We have a guest?" Valjean was saying as he entered, that old gentle smile on his face. There was more grey in his hair and the crow's feet around his eyes had multiplied since last Javert saw him, but the only deep lines cut into his face were shaped by laughter.

Releasing a breath he did not recall holding, Javert bowed deep and spoke. "Inspector Javert at your service, Monsieur. Please, hear me out: I must once again humbly beg your pardon."

He did not answer, Valjean, only stood frozen like a stone. Slowly, his shock seemed to give way, and Javert saw a simmering anger rise in him, which he had rarely witnessed. He recalled it well, though, from the first death Fantine suffered, and found himself straightening in response, almost standing at attention as he had before Monsieur le Maire.

"You are not here to..." Valjean glanced back at his daughters flocked in the doorway, and his mouth thinned and grew stern. "Cosette, Éponine! Please return to your room, for I must speak privately with the Inspector."

Cosette gasped in surprise and Éponine began protesting, but Valjean raised a hand, demanding their silence. "Girls. I will speak with the Inspector in private. And I will do so now."

"As you wish, Monsieur." Dark eyes stared at Javert for a long moment before Éponine turned and walked out, every line in her body screaming of suspicion.

"Papa..." Cosette looked between them once, bit her lip, and left the room, making sure that the door closed softly.

As it clicked shut, Javert wondered at how such a small sound could leave such heavy echoes behind.

Valjean went to the door, laying a hand against the dark wood as if to ascertain that it was well closed. He did not look at Javert as he spoke, though the tension of his shoulders more than revealed that this was not a gesture of trust. "Have you come to disturb our lives?"

Again, Javert bowed, locking his eyes on the heels of Valjean's fine boots.

"No. I will never interfere in such a way again. I did you wrong by my words when last we spoke. What I asked for was necessary, but I delivered my warnings with needless cruelty and I have regretted it ever since."

Javert had been so overjoyed to have a warning, so hopeful that this was finally a way out, that he had not considered how his relief might come off. Perhaps Valjean, heartbroken at leaving Montreuil-sur-Mer, had not been graceful when hearing his words; but then, he had not delivered them with any trace of gentleness.

_I know what you are, Jean Valjean. I've always known! Now, others have begun digging too, and it seems your time is up. You'll have to chose – ruin or escape._

_Is this what you've hungered for all the time, to see me undone? I thought you ignorant of my past, but now I see you're no better than the rest! You stayed your hand out of comfort, out of greed!_

Perhaps because the depth of friendship that had been growing between them, the argument had torn deeper than any other Javert had known. Soon, words were spoken and names were called which should forever have remained unsaid; beast and coward, hypocrite and liar.

And those had been the kindest of the lot.

_Still more dog than man! You'd rather doom this town than let go of the mayor's juicy bone? What you've stolen, you'll keep – even at the cost of their souls! Sacrifice them all, sacrifice the girl! As long as 'Monsieur Madeleine' is safe!_

_How could someone like you understand? Heartless, soulless, clockwork man! You care for nothing but your empty rules, your petty sense of order!_

Anger had caused Javert's ill-thought words, but pride was the yoke which kept him silent. He'd meet Valjean in Paris, would he not? He needed only to endure, to do what was right, and destiny would bring them together before the barricades rose.

Stubborn, thoughtless pride. It had made him steel his heart, push the matter out of his mind, until years had passed. And when one day, the crawling months began to fly away on hasty wings, it became clear to him how time, that old poison slowly seeping into his soul, had transformed itself into droplets of gold: precious, few, impossible to catch and hold fast.

Only with death breathing down his neck did Javert acknowledge to himself that he did not wish to soil all the friendly words once exchanged between them by going into another life with this bitter rift left unhealed. Even if tomorrow was another start, he'd never meet this Valjean again. He'd lose him to the myriad differences that near invisible changes and pure chance always wrought from life to life. And what kind of man could replace one friend with another without a second's regret? What kind of rat escaped his obligations through death?

"Why did you come, then? Why now?"

Valjean sounded more tired than angered, and Javert clung to this with faint hope. It had all been much easier in his mind, but he still did his best to speak the truth.

"I can make no excuses for my behaviour. For what I said that night, and further, for not offering an apology in all these years... Forgive me, please. I spoke ill, and regret my anger and my words. It was wrong of me."

Valjean ran a hand through his hair and seemed to sink in on himself as anger left him. "I feared you'd come to chase me away again, or worse. How did you even find us?"

Casting a careful glance at the door, which Javert suspected was not thick enough to keep a pair of curious girls with their ears pressed to the wood from hearing what was discussed, he chose discretion.

"I overheard a certain young man in the Jardin de Luxembourg describe you taking walks with a young companion." He was satisfied of Valjean's understanding when he saw the way his shoulders tightened in annoyance. They could still read each other, then. "After that, I simply made a few enquiries in the area and found your current name and address. Please do not worry, Monsieur. Honest people are more likely to speak with the police than assist the blackguards who might try and hurt your children, and I have not implicated you in any way."

Finally, Valjean turned and unless he was mistaken, the lines around his eyes had softened slightly. "I am surprised to hear you admit that there are honest people."

"Few and far between," Javert gravely replied, "which is why I do not always recognize them at once. Will you accept my apologies, Monsieur le Maire?"

"I am no longer that man."

"Another might also hold the position now, but to me you will always be first beneath that title. And to the people of Montreuil-sur-Mer as well. They still remember you with fondness."

For a moment, Valjean only looked at him, searching. Then, he too bowed deep. "I should – I must – offer you my apologies as well, Inspector. My words then were unjust and far too harsh. My anger should not have been aimed at you, when you only came to warn me."

He sighed and trailed his fingers over the closed door. "And, in hindsight, I see how providence guided even those dark events."

Javert's first instinct was to brush away Valjean's apology, act as if he had never cared about his own hurt. But seeing the traces of old sadness on Valjean's face, Javert found himself nodding instead; they'd both hurt, and now they'd both apologized. It was impossible to pretend it had never happened, but perhaps they might let it go.

They stood silent for a moment, Javert taking in the further changes that time had brought to Valjean. The cut of his clothing was perhaps a bit more fashionable than in Montreuil-sur-Mer, the colours brighter, and he had let his hair grow longer. Was it the lateness of the evening, or did he seem more tired than before? At least that inner light which had taken Javert so many years to see still shone undimmed. It eased an old worry in him, the fear that their fight might have caused this man to grow bitter.

"I would... Javert," Valjean said, enunciating the name so carefully that it appeared he had forgotten how to speak it, "would you do us the honour of joining us for dinner tonight?"

"I hardly deserve such a gesture. Monsieur, you must not – for politeness – No, please, no."

"But it is not for politeness' sake. Indeed," Valjean nodded slowly, as if he was only now agreeing with himself, "I would appreciate it very much."

"I should not –"

"And so would Cosette. She has oft asked me about the town, and I have never been able to satisfy her with my answers. You must understand that it is the only friendly childhood she knows, her only tie to her mother."

Perhaps he should have said no, perhaps he ought to have asked for another day. But time was growing short, and Valjean stood before him, his stance relaxed and an invitation on his lips.

It was impossible for Javert to refuse.

He bowed once more, though only a slight inclination of his head this time. "I should not wish to upset a young lady. It would honour me greatly to accept."

When Valjean called, they at once appeared from a room nearby, and Javert re-evaluated their cleverness. The apartment walls looked rather thin. Especially if one had learned early on to use a glass to hear who was awake and who sounded safely asleep, their gold waiting to be removed, it should not be difficult to overhear more than one ought.

He was bidden to wait in the sitting room, Cosette his company, while the rest of the family prepared dinner. It seemed as if the small size of the apartment, coupled with an illness in her family, had led Valjean to send his regular housekeeper away for the summer.

When Valjean realized that this would give his daughter several minutes during which she could interrogate him alone, it looked for a moment as if he considered fleeing and taking another new name. Then Éponine smiled at Javert with well-rehearsed charm, took her father by the arm, and led him to the kitchen.

If the inspector held the illusion that he had escaped, he was quickly relieved of this when Cosette (hadn't she asked him to sound like a dragon only yesterday?) pressed another cup of tea into his hand and pointedly asked how come he had not written to her as he'd apparently once promised.

When Éponine called, they moved to the dining room and Javert took notice of how Madeleine's sturdy pewter and stoneware table set had been replaced by glazed china and thin glass. Still simple in style, as was the white linen tablecloth, but no longer bringing to mind the interior of a convent.

The first dish was served and it became clear that not even a master of escape such as Jean Valjean could run much longer, not when his daughters were on the hunt for truth.

"Due to my position, I gained opponents in Montreuil-sur-Mer," Valjean began. "I will not name them enemies, for I do not believe they held me personal enmity, but these opponents were digging through my past in the hope that they'd find something with which to depose me."

"But papa, why?" Cosette frowned. "I thought everyone liked you."

Valjean fair squirmed at her question. "They did not agree with my political agenda."

Javert couldn't hold back a snort of disdain. The bourgeoisie of Montreuil-sur-Mer didn't give a whit whether their mayor was a Bonapartist, royalist or republican, as long as he continued to fill their coffers.

On the other hand, if Valjean's improving measures for the poor meant that they weren't allowed to use the town coffers to build fancy statues in honour of their grandfathers? If they realized that a fine hospital for all meant that a rich man no longer received preferential treatment? Ah, then, all bets were off.

"Pardon, Monsieur," he said as he felt three sets of questioning stares aimed his way. "But you must admit that your 'political' agenda mostly consisted of trying to improve the life of the poor. The main issue was the jealousy of a few business competitors, aided by a handful of fools with more egoism than sense. It may comfort you to hear, Mlle Cosette, that a great many regrets were uttered among the citizens when your father left and the complaints had not stilled even when I was transferred."

"I suppose I should be flattered, then," Valjean said, sounding somewhat bemused.

"But why leave? If it was only a few persons who opposed you..." Éponine asked.

"Unfortunately, I am but a man, and as such, there are blots on my character. With Cosette so recently come into my care, I did not dare stay and attempt to fight off my detractors. I had to leave, I left, and it is all behind us now."

Éponine was biting her lip as if she wanted to ask what those blots were, but kept silent.

"I received warning from a superior impressed with Monsieur le Maire's good work," Javert told the girls, as it became obvious that Valjean considered the matter cleared. "Unfortunately, when I passed this warning on, I did so in a most unfitting way. Already upset, we then fell into an argument about what the best solution was."

"It was not one of my prouder moments," Valjean acknowledged.

"Nor mine." And by God, did he not have a fine collection of prideless moments by now? "After that, we lost contact. When I was transferred to Paris, where M. Madeleine had last been residing, I decided to try and make amends."

Silence fell over the table again as Javert finished speaking, and he wondered if he had managed to say too much, or had chosen the wrong words again. Busying himself with his food, he wondered if he would not have done better in refusing the invitation after all.

Opposite him, Valjean was chewing with equally stern dedication.

Éponine remarked upon the quality of the duck, her sister answered, and they managed to fill the air with a few minutes of chatter regarding the markets in Paris. When the topic was emptied, Cosette dared ask Javert for a comparison, and he fumbled for something appropriate to say about the quality of food in Montreuil-sur-Mer compared to Paris.

To his horror, the first thing that came to mind was that no matter how lousy it could be, it was at least always better than at Thénardier's inn. He managed to quell his tongue, and came up with something inane about the easy access to Dutch cheese instead.

If spending decades debating civic improvement and moral problems with Monsieur le Maire had not noticeably improved Javert's repertoire of small talk, it had at least taught Valjean to notice when he was sorely out of his depth.

Clearing his throat, Valjean pulled the attention back to himself. "I do hope that you shall take some comfort from this visit, 'Ponine."

The girl stopped, a bit of caramelized onion slowly sliding off her fork while she looked at her father in confusion. "I?"

"Indeed! You have always worried that we are living such retiring lives because of your roots. I have long told you that this is not the reason, have I not? I know you did not want to believe me, but as you can see," Valjean gestured to Javert, "the good inspector confirms my tale. We live in the shadows, my dear, because of my past as much as yours."

When Éponine grew flustered, Valjean clapped his hands together, and that amazing transformation that had once so confused Javert took place. The worried man, the parole-breaker with secrets in his past, became wholly the respectable father. He spoke with confidence, asking about how his daughters had spent their day. He recalled items from the news sheet which he judged Javert had been likely to read, and they had a short, easy conversation about custom fees. Though curiosity still tinged their features, the girls responded to this perhaps more familiar face of their father. The conversation was lighter during the remaining dishes. When dessert was placed before him, Javert began to tell Cosette tales of those she might have known as a child. Éponine listened as well, though her interest was not near as deep since she had never met any of the people concerned.

The only one who did not ask questions was Valjean, who seemed satisfied to serve the fresh white wine and listen politely. His reticence lasted until the meal was being cleared away, when Javert happened to make a comment about the inherent sin of every man.

Turning on the spot, dirty dishes still held forgotten in his hands, Valjean stood in the doorway and held a passionate speech in defence of the goodness in each soul. Javert's retort was short, to the point, and weighty enough that it would have silenced anyone else. Instead, Valjean handed over his burden to an amused Cosette, wiped his hands on his trousers and pulled a recent treatise on morals from his bookcase. Then he read out loud a passage discussing the interconnectedness of sin, poverty and liberty, his familiarity with the words making it obvious that it was a dearly beloved text.

While Javert had not read this particular treatise, the author was known to him. Not wishing to engage further with the sentimentalism of this particular author, he did not make a direct retort. Instead, he pulled a few quotations from his own memory, which all touched upon the wider issue.

It turned out that Valjean possessed several of the books quoted and did not always agree with Javert's reading of them. While the girls looked on with incredulous smiles, they took out a sizeable part of the bookshelf to aid them. Soon enough, they were retreading the grounds of the old discussion of how kindness weighed against justice, a debate that several lifetimes had not resolved.

Finally, Cosette cleared her throat. Repeatedly. By the time they looked up from where Valjean had been sketching out the principles of salvation on his dirty napkin she was drumming her fingers on the back of a chair.

"Ah..." Valjean put down the napkin and only now seemed to realize that his bookshelf had somehow migrated out over the dinner room. "I'm terribly sorry for ignoring you, my dears. And I must ask you to pardon my atrocious manners."

A light blush stained his ears, moving down beneath his sideburns, and it carried far too much fascination for Javert. Luckily, he was still attentive enough to realize that he, too, had been rude to two young ladies, and hurried to mumble an apology.

"It seems as if I've missed having someone to discuss practical ethics with more than I realized," Valjean admitted, favouring them all with a charming smile.

While Javert silently debated making his escape, possibly through the window, Cosette and Éponine exchanged a glance that spoke volumes in the secret language reserved for young girls.

"No, papa, you don't say?" Éponine finally offered. "I almost thought –"

Her sister might smile like an angel, but if Éponine's jerk was any indication, she could pinch like a devil.

"Why don't you and the inspector clear this room, while we finish up in the kitchen," Cosette suggested. "Then we must beg your pardon for tonight. 'Ponine needs to help me with my sums."

"I do? I do. Absolutely, papa, she forgets as soon as I teach it."

Javert took his farewells of the girls, marvelling once again at the natural elegance Éponine seemed to possess, and the contrast this was to the Thénardiers' unkempt, vulgar daughter who now lived only in his memories.

It was an unfortunate fact that it always took longer to return books to order than it took to yank them off the shelf in the heat of debate. Especially since Valjean insisted on using his own idiosyncratic and impractical system of organization.

They had a discussion about that too, which took a fair while.

When finally the dining room was restored to order, even Javert was willing to accept that they deserved a brandy for their work.

Once Valjean had presented him with the drink, and they had taken their seats, another awkward silence filled the room. Neither man was willing to look closely at the other, not with the spectre of two young ladies giggling at them still hovering in the air.

In the end, it was Valjean who proved the braver man again. He sipped his drink, cleared his throat and spoke, in a falsely disinterested tone. "So, Inspector... You don't still hold to the ridiculous notion that it is better to write the laws so that they bind one innocent man rather than allow one criminal to go free, do you?"

"Certainly I do," Javert said, not in the least recalling what he had last said of this issue – which did not mean that he could not quickly come up with an opinion on the matter. "A truly innocent man will not be in danger from even the strictest laws. If there is doubt enough to convict him, why, then he could not have been so guiltless in the first place."

This opening spar loosened their tongues and they spoke well into the night, moving close to the fireplace and speaking with low voices when Valjean mentioned that the girls were probably asleep.

It was... invigorating. Javert had lacked a conversation partner these last years. They went back to old arguments they had both perfected, enjoying the mental battle. They had both learned more since the last time, struggled through improving texts and committing large swaths thereof to their unschooled memories.

Valjean spoke with pride about Cosette and Éponine's scholarly skills being nurtured in their youth, and Javert was honest in his congratulations. Still, they both knew that for them, true satisfaction was proving oneself to another who understood exactly the struggle behind a hard-earned theoretical example and knew the effort buried beneath each natural-sounding simile. They had both struggled for every crumb of learning, and a victory where the opponent knew the cost of each spar, always tasted sweeter.

Their discussion was familiar now; more than that, it was comforting. It seemed to Javert that, having accustomed himself to having another to exchange thoughts and ideas with, he had become addicted to what he had once spent a life without. That he might find this again, that Valjean would look so gently at him in the candlelight, all the while dismantling every one of his arguments with a surgeon's lack of hesitance, went to his head faster than the brandy.

Comfort, long missed. Time, running out.

Either one alone would not have tripped him up, but together, they made him careless. When Valjean reached for another book, passing so close by him, it was as if his hand took on a life of its own.

It was a light touch; Javert's fingers barely allowing themselves to feel the texture of the sleeve enveloping that still strong arm, before he pulled his hand back and clasped it securely behind himself.

Too much, even so, and Javert knew it even before Valjean stepped away from him; to put away a text, of course, one small step that meant nothing and a lifetime at once.

"I'm sorry," Valjean whispered, "I think it might... It's been years, Javert." He seemed to stare through the closed door, his left hand sliding over the sleeve as if it had been a glowing brand that had touched him there long ago, instead of a mere brush of fingers. "It's been years, and I have daughters. But we have time now, do we not?" The careful hope in his eyes was almost as painful as his placating words. "I believe that I should dearly like to have occasion to speak to you again."

Of course Javert nodded in return, smiled and accepted it. He even stayed another half hour, before he mentioned that he had early work tomorrow, and it was already well past midnight.

Valjean asked for his address, received it, and insisted on paying for a cab to bring him home. They shook hands firmly, like old friends might. Valjean invited him to return come Sunday.

Javert declined; there would be a great deal to do for the police this weekend. However, it would be an honour if he were to be allowed to return the week after that.

Naturally, Valjean said. He would be warmly welcomed.

Instead of directing the cab to his home, Javert had it take him to the Palais de Justice. As he walked up the marble stairs, a great many thoughts flowed through his mind. He paused before stepping out onto the roof, standing in the darkness of the little chapel and simply listened to himself breathe. He felt no fear this time, for he knew now that his progress was real.

The stakes, the lives affected, and the time involved were all rising... but heights had never scared him. No, all Javert feared was the possibility that he was trapped in a place were both depths and heights were mere illusions, because there was no further distance to fall.

It was two hours past midnight when Inspector Javert stepped out on the roof, where he remained until the sun rose. He watched the distant dance of the stars, their movements tranquil above the restlessly dozing city, and he realized that he no longer envied their cold detachment from the world. What lonely beings they must be, to exist only in their own solitary brightness through eternity, while empty nothing surrounded them on all sides.

The first flickers of dawn's flame rose on the horizon. The coming day drowned the buildings in gold and scarlet, painting the circle of glory-filled dreams and bloody realities against the ancient stones of the cathedral. Yes, dreams and gold and blood; Paris had known it all, and she would know all three again, perhaps until the stars themselves faltered.

As the church bells began tolling seven, Javert turned his back on the morning and went down to write the letter in which he would volunteer to spy on the rebellious elements of the city.

It was a sweet summer morning, it was the 29th of May and, in the winding alleys, children dreamed of freedom and prepared to bleed.


	5. Each for the joy of working

**Chapter five: Each for the joy of working, each its separate star**

* * *

**The seventeenth time**

Javert put on his freshly pressed uniform and made sure his rapier hung correctly. Earlier, he had polished his boots and shaved with great care, marvelling at how young he looked on this morning – that he had never noticed before! Time certainly flew.

Resting two fingers on the letter waiting in the left pocket of his coat, he closed his eyes and tried to etch the important memories into his mind, before going out to begin another life.

Remember Fauchelevent, he told himself, for providence does not make mistakes. Remember the student Pontmercy and find him and his friends.

And never forget how short time is, when there is something you want to hold on to.

In his previous life, Javert had died on the sixth of June. Valjean had never appeared at the site of rebellion. What changes had caused this deviation from the pattern, he could not guess, especially since he didn't even understand what had brought the man there in the first place.

But before he dared attempt to pull Valjean to the events around the Café Musain, he must deal with the destruction of the barricade itself. Otherwise, the only thing to change would be that they'd both end up dead before the night had passed.

Even trussed up and beaten, Javert had heard fairly well how the very first attack on the barricade had gone, all those lifetimes ago and he knew the students had somehow scared off the soldiers with some kind of bluff. This time, when the gamin denounced him, Javert gave in much more meekly and allowed the students to bind him without violence. His hope was that, by keeping his head clear, he might be able to act more freely at a later time; and, were he to fail, he would at least learn a great deal more.

Both hopes had been bitterly disappointed. Whatever circumstances had stopped the soldiers on that first night had not occurred again. Instead, the national guard broke through on their first attack; as they had at most barricades. The revolutionaries fought with the courage of the doomed and from his place in the empty café, Javert heard their battle-cries rise with that final fervour.

Then, suddenly, it all went terrifyingly wrong. Somehow, the unsecured stores of gunpowder exploded; likely they were hit by a stray bullet. Though Javert could not see the worst, he could hear too much, and what he heard was the sound of a hell unparalleled by anything but a torturer's work.

The explosion turned the entire alley into a booming inferno, shrapnel tearing through soldiers and rebels alike. Even protected by the building, splinters and debris reached him as well, though none fatally. Instead, he spent several seconds helplessly listening to the sounds of young men dying, the difference between rebel and soldier forgotten in their agony. Around them, the fire spread, taking its victims on the most harrowing road to the grave. Even in the midst of the hellish scene, the memory of another who had been forced down that same road in another lifetime pained him still. Javert had not waited for the flames to reach him, nor the hot fumes to finish the job at their own pace; he weighed more heavily on the noose and was grateful to sink into dimness and smoke, before emerging anew on the other side of death.

Clearing his throat now, Javert did his best to ignore the mirage of grey smoke and red blood seeping up through the floorboards. He'd free himself from the image as soon as he had a day or two to distance himself from the latest death; he _must_ free himself, so he would.

That said, Javert thought that he definitely needed to refrain from suffering any more deaths by strangulation, drowning or consumption. He loosened his cravat and swallowed again, as old pains flared up; a ghostly noose tightening around his neck, stale water filling his lungs, his breath growing heavy as if six feet of dirt weighed down on him already.

No more choking.

One of his men knocked on the door and Javert grabbed his gloves and hat. It was time to begin another life.

Pontmercy. Fauchelevent. The night of the barricade and the mystery of the stopped attack. He would remember.

And whatever else happened, whomever else he must save or meet, there remained always Jean Valjean.

* * *

Thanks to diligent work and equally diligent letter-writing to certain superiors, Javert managed to receive a transfer to Paris in late spring 1831.

After two days spent settling in at his new post, he allowed himself to pen an inquiry and post it to the address of one Ultime Fauchelevent; another whom he had exchanged frequent letters with during the last years, though these words were written with far gentler considerations, than those missives Javert had written to further his career.

The reply had come swiftly, carried by a street-urchin who kept the entire station staring in curiosity while he had fumbled for a coin and hoped the little pest wouldn't steal anything.

At least the answer had been positive and tonight, he was invited for dinner.

Dressing himself in his best shirt, Javert pondered the strange windings of fate. He was not certain how or why, but despite a different name and a different path bringing him there, Valjean was once again residing on Rue Plumet, though a few numbers away from the previous adress.

He forewent a carriage, choosing to walk. There were myriad things to see in Paris and he was eager for them all. Despite the fondness he had for Montreuil-sur-Mer, especially now that he'd been allowed to leave it once moren, eight repetitive years had starved him for new sights. Passing the park, he looked around for young Pontmercy, but was not disappointed when he did not appear. It was still early.

This time when he knocked on Valjean's door it was the man himself who opened it. To Javert's eyes, the years seemed to have awarded him a further glow of grace, even in a task so mundane as bidding a guest inside and taking his coat. He thought the light might be from joy; Madeleine had never seemed able to let go of his worries, although his smiles had been frequent.

Now Valjean was full of a father's pride when he showed off his daughters: sweet Cosette, who was happy to reunite with someone she had treated as an uncle in Montreuil-sur-Mer, and elegant, if reserved, Éponine. Valjean called her the final treasure he'd stolen, with a secret smile aimed at Javert, and he found himself answering it in turn.

They ate well and spoke of the past; fondly of the town they had left behind and with admiration for Paris, great and terrible city that she was. When Javert carefully inquired whether the family had struggled with any trouble from those too interested in their pasts, Éponine's brow darkened, but this time Valjean could reassure him. There had been lingering issues the first year, he said, but after meeting old Fauchelevent and gaining his and the convent's assistance, no trace had remained of the mayor of Montreuil-sur-Mer.

Nor, Javert added to himself, of the girl bought from a villain never satisfied with what he was given.

"I don't keep in touch with many of the citizens beyond yourself and Sister Simplice. On occasion, I write letters of donation to the director of the hospital and the matron in the workhouse," Valjean admitted. "Since I have them hand-delivered to the other end of Paris before they are given over to the postal services, I believe we remain sheltered."

"We truly are avoiding enemies from your past?" Éponine asked, casting curious eyes at Javert.

"Indeed, and while I doubt that they will try to trace me here, I do not intend to be careless. My dear... I would not have deceived you in such a way," Valjean chided gently. "The good inspector is one of extremely few people who knows me under my old name. Without his warning, I might not have been able to leave so easily."

"For Montreuil-sur-Mer it was a misfortune that you had to leave at all," Javert said. "But, attitudes being what they are, it would have been an absolute disaster if a mayor with such radical ideas had been fired in disgrace."

"I still can't believe someone would come to hate you, papa, merely because of your birth," Cosette said. "It is unfair that we must hide our roots or be seen as lesser in society!" She pushed the remains of her food around on the plate, and shook her head sadly. "It is more than unfair, it is not right."

Javert's chuckle was rough. "Equality and brotherhood... the great dreams of the burghers, until they are asked to empty their own purses for a brother. Then those same people will tear each other apart for pocket change."

"You are still too harsh, Javert."

"Am I?" He lifted one of the ornamented forks, clinked it against an empty wineglass. "Monsieur, you have worn the coat of a gentleman for many years, and you wear it better than most men I have ever met. Your coffers are no doubt as full as in the days when you could lift an entire town out of poverty, and these young ladies are beautiful creatures of both grace and wit. Yet, were it revealed that you were born a labourer, or that your lovely daughters came from equally humble beginnings, no fine silver in the world could buy you true respect."

"So you say, but do you not sit at my table despite knowing me for what I am? Have you not yourself admitted that your patron Monsieur Chabouillet became your benefactor when you were a young guardsman without connections or anything else to promote you? Beyond your exceptional talent for enforcing justice, of course." Valjean began to count on his fingers, while the girls followed their debate with interest. "The Bishop of Digne, without whose assistance I could never have risen from the gutters, the good Sisters who have so often helped us, the old families in Montreuil-sur-Mer who were prepared to gamble on an unfamiliar factor as mayor –"

"He says unfamiliar," Javert muttered to Éponine, who sat next to him, "but he forgets to mention that they all knew he was rich as Croesus."

The girl hid her smile behind her napkin, but he thought to see agreement in her eyes.

"They still gave me a chance!" Valjean rolled his eyes as he saw how this did not make much of an impression on his audience. "The world is moving forward, if at a slow pace. Today, an inventor can become a factory owner, can work himself up to the level of a gentleman. That would hardly have been possible under the Ancien Régime. And, if we could only remove the many hindrances that still shackle the poor in their place, I am certain that France would easily find a thousand inventive mayors willing to turn their ailing home towns around. Good education for the little ones and fewer barriers between the classes... There is still so much work left! And I am an old man who can do little but try and spread a bit of gold among the worst afflicted."

"You don't value yourself enough, papa," Cosette complained; it sounded to be an old matter between them. "Did you know, Inspector, that he has paid for two entire schools on his own? Both are managed by the church and open to children of all backgrounds."

"Indeed I did not not. It seems that he has forgotten to mention that in his letters, Mademoiselle," Javert answered.

"Yes, papa tends to forget his own accomplishments," Éponine agreed. "The schools are still rather small, but we are growing faster than we can find teachers. I assist the girls with counting exercises, but if Father Michél grows much deafer and we don't find another full-time teacher soon... You don't happen to know someone who has a good head for numbers, Inspector?"

"Why do you not ask one of those rebellious students running around? If they truly wish to change the world, it would make more sense to teach the next generation, instead of throwing fouled fruit at hard-working policemen."

Valjean almost choked on his wine when he heard that. He peered at Javert with a definite teasing glint in his eyes when he replied. "I would almost like to see one dare assault you in that manner – if I didn't suspect you'd scare the boy so badly that he'd ask to be imprisoned for life."

"The law," Javert growled, "is _not_ to be mocked, Monsieur." But he too was smiling.

Their discussion continued while their housekeeper cleared the table and carried them on through coffee in the parlour. When the girls excused themselves for the evening, Valjean gave him a long, searching look.

"Do you still keep those ungodly working hours, tramping through the city day and night?" he finally asked.

"Do you still walk around in the night weighed down with coin, just waiting to be robbed?"

Nodding in satisfaction, Valjean reached for his coat. "Come, Javert, for I would show you the Paris that I know."

"I would be honoured," he answered, and there was nothing mocking in his tone.

They left the apartment and strolled in companionable silence for a while. Rounding the closed Jardin du Luxembourg, Valjean took the lead. "Since I seem to have forgotten to mention this little school project of mine, I suppose I could show it to you. If you have the time?"

Javert inclined his head. "Tomorrow is my day off."

Anticipating a late return, Javert had brought his police issued lantern along. Valjean, too, was equipped with a stable-light, and together they had light enough to walk into the depths of the city.

Though the larger streets were lit by the city, Valjean would step into alleys where the night turned pitch dark beyond the reach of their lanterns. There, he would somehow see the one heap consisting of more than waste and find the human being dragged down to the bottom of the world; there, he would try to buy another soul for God.

Meanwhile it rustled in the shadows around them, it whispered from the dark, and Javert hoped they attracted nothing worse than rats.

"Sometimes, I am surprised that you have survived as long as you have," he grumbled when Valjean's attention woke an entire group of lean-looking beggars, their dirty hands fumbling for his fine coat and stroking over his well-made boots. A few even dared stretch pleading hands in Javert's direction.

"I give what I have to give," Valjean said philosophically. "It has happened once or twice that some wanted more than I would consider their share, but what of it? I have had enough for them each time."

Imagining him dead in a gutter somewhere, bleeding out from a dirty knife while those soft eyes dulled, turned Javert's stomach. Would he have felt it? Would he too have fallen from the sting of a knife, or would he only have noticed the world drowning once it was too late and Valjean was outside this life? He quickened his pace, wishing suddenly for the illuminated city of light and order; to step on cobble-stones instead of wading through dreck.

"I ought to have come earlier," he said, speaking without thinking, "so that I could keep an eye on you!"

"Please, Javert, I am hardly defenceless."

"It's not about that. It's about you being a reckless saintly fool! Why can you not see how much more you achieve when you build schools and hospitals? Keep yourself safe enough to do good another day!"

"I had no idea you worried so..." Valjean's hand on his arm was firm and heavy, and his smile in the dim light of the lantern looked less a thing from heaven than sent from down below, full of shadows and burnt gold.

"Come, my friend, come and see these safe houses for little children that I have helped build. Don't think of my foolish affectations any more."

They came up to St. Jacques du Haut Pas and Valjean led them around to the back. Behind the church was a large building, the paint flaking so badly off it that it was obvious even in the sparse light. Valjean had the key on a chain and so, after a moment of struggle with the ill-fitting door, they went inside.

First they passed a corridor, its walls hung with name-plaques and images of saints, a dozen painted eyes watching over each visitor to the school; kind, they looked, protective and welcoming. No judging frowns to greet the children of the gutters every day.

"In remembrance of our donors," Valjean explained, lifting his lantern for better light. "For those who do not wish to be recognized by name, we have hung these icons instead, so that the children may still know how many good souls support them."

"I suppose that one is yours, then?" Javert nodded towards a large triptych with Marie-Madeleine, surrounded on each side by St. Pierre and St. Paul, all three of them gazing toward heaven and He who stands above.

"Yes," Valjean said, his voice caught between embarrassment and fondness. "I had it commissioned and sent down from the painter in Montreuil-sur-Mer. Do you recall him? He was always so upset that my mayorship spent more time on plumbing than on the fine arts. I thought I might do him this little service at least." He hesitated a moment, then pointed out a group of small portraits. "These four are also for my donations. Father Michél insisted, when I would not see my name written anywhere in the school."

Javert squinted to read the names of the saints: Grégoire le Grand and Isidore de Seville, two scholars of old, and beneath them St. Geneviève and St. Maurice. A guardian and a soldier, both sorely needed to protect these poor children of Paris.

"It is good," Javert said, for he knew not what else to say. You should hang your own portrait among them? No, that would do no good. So he kept his silence and made an effort to look over the other icons, while silently he considered whether the priest would listen, were he to suggest that they write out the founder's name above the doors. In white on white, to appease his humility, but writ large, that the angels might read of Jean Valjean.

They continued on to the classroom. Lightning two candles near the door, Valjean gestured at the expanse of the room, letting his lantern beam pass over white-washed walls, rough-hewn wooden benches and a blackboard barely visible in the shadows. Sparse, but clean.

"It's not much to look at," he admitted, "but the roof doesn't leak and we have books and ink for four full classes. Next year, we plan to replace the windows and buy a piano. Cosette shall teach those who wish to learn how to play it, and we are looking for more teachers too."

"You could have done so much," Javert marvelled, looking around the large room. "So much, if only you'd been given the freedom..."

The classroom was dark now, empty of life. But he could still almost see the spirits of children learning, playing, growing – becoming something more than trash.

This simple room, much sparser than the fine school in Montreuil-sur-Mer, was still an infinity beyond the hovels Javert recalled from his own childhood. To learn to read here, to enter the world of numbers and sense... What a difference for a child to witness God's words and work borne out in tandem!

No longer only hearing without understanding, no longer being told about an ideal world where order and calm flowed from the Mass, while the dirty truth of chaos festered around him. Oh, Javert recalled it well, how the glory of the bells might reach an ignorant sinner kneeling in the muck... but with only mud around himself to see and learn from, no bells could do more than ring his muddy heart into dry, senseless brick.

To not merely dream of God's glory high above and see the fallible world below, and wish to become the scourge in His hand and given lease to wipe the stains off the world... but to stand a half-step above the filth, to dare imagine a land where law and mercy worked hand in hand. To dare more than imagine, to begin and build a world where even a child of the gutters might dream of reaching the great kingdom in this life, might think fairness real...

"Javert? Are you well?"

Almost overwhelmed by the goodness of this man whom he had spent more than a lifetime persecuting, Javert could only shake his head at the foolish question. Why ask him that? When it had been his choices, his refusal to see, that forced Valjean into a life of hiding where throwing coins at beggars had been the most he dared do.

He set the lantern down on a bench and walked towards the blackboard; stumbled, in truth, for he had to support himself against the wall to hold himself up. The echoing room, the empty benches – did they judge Javert, or did they not care? His soul trembled, naked and alone, in that silent room.

Was anything he thought to see around him even real? Did it matter what they strived for; Javert or Valjean, anyone at all? He had prayed for faith, had forced himself to trust in God's grace. Yet seeing this shabby little wonder and learning of the light it would shine into a world he only halfway dared believe to be real, all his fears assailed him again.

It was as if the contrast illuminated all the faults of the world Javert dimly recalled as the first – as the true? The years of hiding and of fear: caused by him. When compared to the world before his eyes, the errors he had made appeared even more grave.

This, was what it might have become without him. Still fallible and imperfect, but kinder; hopeful in an infinite number of ways. This, then, was what Javert had helped topple before it was ever built... yet now, he was allowed to behold it despite all his faults. Had he managed to make amends? Or was he shown it only to know the depths of his sins?

Perhaps it was the very quality of hope Javert saw in the school was that which caused him to doubt anew. For dared he truly believe that these infinitely circling worlds exist outside of his mind? And if they did – if every deed and act was true and real – how many had not suffered because of his past sins?

What man was he, who could not see the potential of the world until it was driven into him by fists and blades and rivers dark?

It was a suffocating despair unlike the low points Javert had experienced before; they had been caused first and foremost by outside factors; the pain of death, the dreariness of reliving the same events again and again, his bitter anger at the world which would not let him die... but never since that first life, since the bridge over the Seine, had he felt such a crushing wish to not be.

What was law without mercy? Cruelty. What was a man who could serve such a law, who would not learn until death claimed and spat him out that he was wholly and utterly wrong? Cruel. Worse than that, unknowingly cruel while proud of his ignorance.

What use was he, a cruel man, who had achieved nothing in his life but to stop the flow of goodness into the world?

"You are wrong, Javert," a gentle voice said; Javert flinched away as Valjean caught his hands and warmed them with his own. "I could not hear all you said," he continued, "but heard enough to know that you are very, very wrong."

Valjean brought his hands up, stroked a thumb over the fingers. The slow movement froze him. In the dim light of the empty school-building, the world seemed to grow transparent and fragile like glass.

"You do not know what I have done. You don't know what I was – am!"

Because was he not still a sinner? Did he not judge wherever he went and whatever he saw? How could he otherwise when he had drunk judgement with his mother's milk and walked the path of stern law all his lives?

"I know enough," Valjean whispered, pulling him closer. "We are both men, no worse or better than any other men. As long as I've known you, you've done your duty, and far more thereby. For what is mercy, without order? How could goodness grow without the just gardener's protection? Shh, my friend, shh, take heart. I've been here too, floundering at the crossroads of choice." Each word spoken so close against his skin that Javert more felt them through hands and heart than heard them in his ears. "If your sins weigh so heavy, if you are so hardened and damned, then why does your soul hurt so? A man who is stone has no regrets and feels no remorse."

"I didn't," he confessed. Without Valjean holding him up with his strength, he would have fallen. Instead he was held, though he was not worthy, and caught, he who had fallen for so long, and the arms supporting him were too warm for his weak soul to resist. "For so many years, I cared for nothing and saw nobody. I was blind to the depths of my sin, and I didn't even know it, for I thought myself a virtuous man."

"Then open your eyes and see anew. There are so many beautiful things in our world, Javert."

When Valjean laid his cheek against his own, when Javert felt the scent of his hair and learned the warmth of his body, it was as if he would shatter; yet still he feared.

"I know of this beauty," he admitted, eyes squeezed shut, words forcing themselves out of his heart with his coward mind helpless to stop them. "I see this beauty, I have looked upon it for years, but I dare not, I _can_ not reach for it! If I destroy it by my touch, if I lose it all by my actions, I shall – I cannot, God have mercy on me, I cannot!" Tearing himself free from Valjean, his hands searched for support against the cool stone walls, only to find the world tilting beneath him and the stone slipping away beneath his hands; there was nothing to hold on to. Javert was falling, again, and beneath him not even a river to stop his tumble.

"No," Valjean whispered, pressing ever closer, as if he wished to fall into Javert, for them to sink into the dark together. "No, it is not so, I swear it. The beauty I see is one shaped by God. How could any of us, mortals all, ruin his work?"

"Because time ruins everything, and I fear to become an agent of this time. I reach, and reach, and forever I fall." Again, he felt words take shape without his conscious mind willing it: a trembling, helpless confession from the bottom of his soul. "I fear to find you, for to find you is to risk losing you again, and then... Then I shall be ruined forever."

And behind his eyelids Javert saw a dozen deaths. And he thought of them all afflicting this man, his prisoner, his saint, the keeper of his heart – and knew that living through even one might break him.

But Valjean was too close to be a shadow, the thrum of his pulse the only thing real remaining in the world, and he spoke such soft words against Javert's ear. "Faith, my friend. Let me share with you a secret, that you might unlock this between us."

"Please. Oh God, please."

"I fear too," he confessed, and the pain in Valjean's voice rang too raw to contain a lie. "So many nights before I sleep, I have feared for my daughters. In the eyes of strangers that pass, I have seen the grasping hands of those who'd ruin my happiness, and I'm in terror of any who will yank them away. There are not words in this world which can describe the fear I have felt when I consider those I love." A hand cradling Javert's head, and soft lips against his brow. "In my waking nightmare, in the hours before dawn when I lie, feeling old and worn, these fears take me and I see them die. I see Éponine, driven to her death by poverty and madness, I see Cosette tiny and abandoned, all alone. I imagine them both suffering in childbirth and never waking again... And I see you. May the Lord save us both, but I have dreamt your death by the waters and the gun and the plague and no prayer can free me from these fears, no saints will deliver me."

"How dare you love, then? How dare anyone!"

"Because beyond the fear is grace. And tasting love, I may drink it."

And with those words, Valjean bent closer and kissed the skin beneath his eyes, and kissed away his half-spilled tears, and Javert's hands clawed at his back and for the first time since he had been born, he dared open his eyes and look upon love.

He feared, still. He shivered in his body, and his soul cried out from fear. Holding Valjean in his arms, daring to kiss his cheeks, finding his lips with his own and drinking love from them could not silence this fear, nor could the sweet words whispered or the gentle touches following; they could not extinguish it, could not drown it out.

But he loved.

While the candles burned down, sputtered and died untended, there against the hard wall, Javert learned of love and the truth of it that had been hidden to him for so many years: That to love was to be in agony, for to love was to feel and fear and burn so bright that one might ignite. And that, even throwing oneself into the flames of eternity, one would not shed tears of sadness or regret, but only cry and burn for that one blissful thing: for love.

And when their fumbling hands had done their work, and their kisses had grown surer, they sat together in the darkness. His uniform coat was draped clumsily over their shoulders; Valjean's voice was soft and silly as he rambled sleepily against Javert's side. It was a miracle beyond naming to hold an arm around him, to dare mouth soft kisses against his curls and know that they had shone together.

Of the fear there remained a dimming ember, but of regret? Not even ashes to be found.

* * *

Paris in springtime blossomed like a shy maiden letting down her hair. There were young lovers in each park, their giggles and whispers trailing behind them, later to escape from open windows and hastily drawn curtains.

The height of summer was still far away, when the oppressive heat of the city would mingle with the stink of garbage rotting in the gutters. When sweltering summer came to the slums of Paris, even the most tenderly attempted lovemaking turned into a trial; too-sweaty bodies floundering in a feverish dance of corruption.

In spring, infatuations still had the magic of fresh roses: each petal unfolding to reveal new beauty, enchanting eye and heart alike. In spring, to be young was to love. It the seasons of second thoughts were far away; still so much time before summer's overburdened days when tempers ran hot, or autumn's cooling nights that whispered of rationality and regret; the time when bellies swelled and arguments were dredged up like soggy old cabbage forgotten at the bottom of the pot. Now, they were still an eternity away, for the first infatuation lived only in the moment and stretched the day into forever. Winter? Winter, when the penniless student froze in his attic and the grisette did not attend her daily toilette for lack of both firewood and coin... this cold winter was surely a nightmare invented to make springtime sweeter.

In the springtime, Paris sang like a youth caught in the first storm of love. The children of the city followed the tune merrily, their footsteps light as they danced ever faster in Venus' thrall.

Among this gaiety and laughter, this burst of springtime lust, were two who stubbornly walked to the beat of their own drum. They passed the naughty, smirking lips of the city's girls, all eager to taste of forbidden fruit behind spring-green willows; they stepped past the flushed boys stumbling over their own feet in their haste to fall into love's embrace.

There walked, through glorious days and coy nights, two whose silvery whiskers and age-lined cheeks hid secrets of their own; astounding secrets, as fresh and frail as those within any springtime child.

None could have told at the first, or even second, glance – for crabby policemen and old convicts were harder to pull along in the mad waltz of the seasons, and their tempo was of a different kind. Where they walked in the night, their company was sought only by those too caught in the morass of poverty to bother with the Cupid's invitations. When the Inspector entered the Jardin des Tuileries, it was as if a cold draft had come down from the north, leaving the flowers shuddering and both cravats and girdles hastily restored to order. Neither suspicious priests nor filthy-minded libertines would have accorded the philanthropist at his side the least share in the hot, heaving dreams of sin and temptation that swept the city each night.

For did not all know, would not all swear, that among men grown old and grey, there existed only either the dirty, pinching thief of lust or the saintly tower of virtue; did not the world agree that nobody of age might follow another path?

In May, when sonnets were recited and ballads were sung, this pair spoke of law and justice, of the Bible and the Lord, and the discussions between them went on far longer than the most heartfelt ode to love ringing from the inns. Between them were arguments aplenty, both great and small, for they were both stubborn, awkward men.

Cosette's curiosity about Montreil-sur-Mer slowly dried up while she listened to her father and his new friend argue the optimal layout of the town's water and sewage system; when they moved on to draw plans for one encompassing the booming villages around Paris, she began to loudly practice her piano scales. While at first sharp-eyed Éponine remained on the lounge and followed the verbal sparring with curiosity, she too began to hide behind the latest edition of _Journal des dames_, rather than risk getting dragged into a discussion she had little knowledge of and even less interest in.

As summer progressed, it happened on occasion that Inspector Javert would leave off his greatcoat when a Sunday afternoon grew especially sweltering. At his side, for they would usually take a stroll together after Mass, Monsieur Fauchelevent might remove his coat to let the wind play with cool fingers at his shirtsleeves and at the edge of his waistcoat. On such occasion, each man's eyes might linger a shade longer than proper on the form of their companion, but probably, a passerby might think, it was mere disbelief that an Inspector could exist without his uniform; that a gentleman would be so brash as to display such an oft-mended shirt?

If they happened to end their stroll in the neighbourhood where Javert lived, they might pass the fine little bakery by the corner, then enter a half-hidden churchyard and sit on a bench beneath the green trees, sharing bread and fruit and careful smiles. If instead their rambling walks took them towards Rue Plumet, they might have a glass of white wine, chilled in the ice box Éponine had let install two years ago and their discussions would flow free while exasperated daughters reminded that books lacked the feet to return themselves to their shelves.

If the night grew late, perhaps they might also take a sip of liquor and then. Since neither of them was a great drinker, it happened on occasion that they shared one single glass, and more than strong spirits might cast a blush upon each cheek.

And on certain evenings: When there had been a suffering child beyond the help of any amount of gold, or when a knife held in a cruel hand cut down a frightened woman and a young constable alike; when all windows were dark and peaceful, while the stars gleamed so clear one might think to reach out and pluck them, or when the foul, fermenting smell of the river was for a moment driven away by a whiff of blooming osmanthus from the botanical gardens... On such evenings, Valjean might send a boy with a note home so his daughters wouldn't worry, and they would steer their steps towards the empty apartment on Rue de l'Homme-Armé.

Evenings such as these were not for speaking. What few words fell were less challenging than in the daytime. In the austere rooms, lit by sparse candles, another kind of truth ruled; in this silence, far more than coats and hats were shed. No windows would be opened and the sounds uttered belonged to a language beyond cool reason. In wonder and in terror, they would come together and explore each other; with awkward shyness in the spring, with the ease to laugh and dare mistakes in sweltering summer, with dear familiarity in autumn, and with a comfort and ever-steady longing in the crisp nights of winter.

And beneath and above it all, thrumming through their hearts, there was the silent beat of their own hidden tune: not young infatuation this, but something which burned slower and lasted longer than many of the brash passions of spring.

Christmas came and went; gifts were exchanged and the New Year greeted with hope and good cheer. The heavy chill left the city, the slush dried up, and in the Alps the föhn swept away the remains of winter. When sweet April once again swept blossom-covered skirts over France, and young lovers frolicked and courted their mates in Paris, these two greying men kept on walking, talking, arguing... and meeting in those silent, secret nights; hands rarely touching, but each contact remembered and cherished throughout the coming days.

It was late spring of 1832; voices demanding bread and equality for all were ringing ever louder. In the winding alleys, children dreamed of freedom and prepared to bleed. And still they walked the night together, two souls brimming over with love.

* * *

Beyond the happiness of the moment, or even the great glowing joy of the past year, Javert did not forget his duties or the slippery time running through his hands.

The problem of how to keep the barricade standing through the night, preferably without additional lives wasted from the side of the national guard, kept him awake more and more often as winter turned to spring and no solution would appear to his mind. When one day providence cut away the brambles of confusion and showed him the way ahead, he was almost too surprised to give thanks for the help given.

It happened thus: On the date of May the second, Inspector Javert was alerted to a disturbance of the peace. He was patrolling the alleys of Saint Michel when he heard a gamine call after her friends to wait, for she too wished to see the fight.

The Paris police had plenty of men who would have looked the other way; in truth, they might well have avoided the slums altogether. But the Inspector followed this cry and in turn his three constables were forced to follow him, despite the damage to their boots from the thick layer of refuse they must cross in their pursuit of the nimble child.

What Javert saw that noonday would to any other have looked like the simple matter of a beggar accosting a man of means; though how or why had a gentleman strayed this far, they might well have asked.

To his eyes, however, there was a strange doubling going on. While he saw the well-dressed man trying to shake loose an aggressor, his daughter cowering nearby in fright, he also saw a mirage laid above them: Another daughter and the same man, but shaped so differently by destiny, that Javert might scarce have known him in the dark.

"Look out!" the high voice of a boy yelled. "It's the coppers! It's Javert!"

At his words, the present snapped into place and his hesitation evaporated. Javert lifted his lead-topped stick; with a gesture to his men to encircle the disturbance, he pushed aside the gawkers and stepped up to the two men at the centre of the square.

"Another brawl in the square?" he sneered at the tall pauper, who smiled sheepishly and did his best to act as if his fist bunched in the gentleman's collar was a friendly gesture. "Ah, _Jondrette_, I should've known from your stink who was involved."

When he turned to Valjean, he was disquieted to see the wan colour of his face; catching his eyes, Valjean mouthed 'knife' before flicking a look towards Éponine.

Two men were standing too close to her. Now that his attention had been drawn to it, Javert noticed that he could not see the right hand of the one he knew as Brujon; a killer and a thief, if the rumours of the underworld had it right.

Éponine stood stock-still, eyes wide and hands clenched unto trembling. The naked terror on her face angered him even more deeply than the sight of the foulest man he knew laying hands on Valjean; there, at least, he knew that the fight would favour the right party.

"Please, mademoiselle, the streets are not safe. You should follow one of my constables out of here," he said, reaching out a hand for the girl. One step between them was all he needed, and then he and his men would be enough to protect...

"Hey there!" Thénardier broke in, choosing to step away from Valjean rather than force his man to either hide the blade or act. He smiled, disgusting ingrate that he was, and bowed to Javert. "Inspector, I'm so grateful that yer here! See, this gent ain't all 'e seems to be! Scrape a bit at 'is polish, and you'll find him no more bourgeois than meself! And this –" He twirled dramatically and pointed an accusing finger at Valjean, whose glare only darkened, the veins standing out on his clenched hands. "That girl is the child he stole from me!"

To hear him speak as if he was a man, to see this _thief_ accuse Valjean... It took an effort to keep his hand off his gun, but there were too many witnesses around for Javert to do more than dream of this simplest path. Blood spilled, he told himself, with questions unasked would leave the wrong sort of impressions behind. He dared not risk Valjean's identity, nor his own position.

But Javert recalled the trial and the shame; the starving little child that evaded the raised hand; and further away, separated from this life by so many years, he recognized the thin, dirty-faced girl lying in the row of the dead. Never grown to half her potential, never knowing decency or kindness, never being offered more than the same wretched choice; outside or outside, alone through life whatever way they took.

How he longed to take up his gun in that moment! If not for the knowledge of how close the threshold of the barricade night loomed, who knew what foolish acts he might have committed?

Instead he forced calm, was wholly the feared Inspector gazing down from the heights of Law. He raised an eyebrow and looked, slowly, between the three with all the disdain he could muster: Valjean, in a fine mustard-yellow coat and a fashionable hat; Éponine in a modest dress of light blue muslin with a sprig of fresh flowers pinned to her chest; and old Thénardier in a tattered waistcoat, his messy sideburns still containing the crumbs of his latest meal.

"And I assume you have a witness to support this outlandish claim?" he said, condescension fair dripping from his voice. Rather than give Thénardier time to revel too much, he gestured to the policeman at his back, and watched with pleasure as the maggot was roughly grabbed by the shoulder.

"Hey! Lemme go– I've got–!"

It was the work of a moment to use the distraction to push his stick between Éponine and Brujon, to snap it painfully against the villain's hand and pin him down with a stare.

Following him as if they had choreographed it ahead, Valjean leaped forward two steps, and pulled his daughter close, gathered her to the safety of his arms.

"Thank you, Inspector," he said, and Javert heard both fear and rage flow beneath the forced calm of his words. "I have no idea whatsoever what this man is talking about. It is madness, lies, every word of it."

"Of course he lies, Monsieur," Javert replied. "I know his name, I know his 'trade', I know what scum he is. Upon your witness, we'll make sure justice is done."

The gob that landed between them was thick with phlegm; spittle still staining her lips, the Thénardier woman swaggered out from the shadows and her smile was pure poison. "I'm not saying 'e ain't a bit of a liar, my husband, not saying we ain't poor – but Inspector, the little miss is our blood, and that I'd swear on sweet Jesus himself. So," she drawled, pointing a dirty finger at the still-trembling Éponine, "why dontcha ask her herself?"

"We don't need to listen to this! Inspector, clear away this rabble," Valjean said, trying to tug Éponine away from the square.

Unfortunately, from the way the crowd closed around them, Javert had the feeling things might turn ugly if he tried to sweep the curious faces away right now. Despite the year passed and the reputation he had amassed, he was not the head Inspector of Paris, as he had been in the smaller town, and Valjean was no longer the awe-inspiring Monsieur le Maire.

Four policemen and the strongest convict of Toulon, against five robbers and one screeching wife? Odds he'd take any day – but not with a vulnerable girl in their midst, not with two dozen scheming, sneaking, poverty-stricken men and women surrounding them, each potentially armed with a stabbing blade or skull-breaking club.

The Thénardiers, under the name of Jondrette, were known in this area, though hardly liked. But this was irrelevant at the moment, for Javert suspected that all of Saint Michel was listening, deadly curious about this latest scheme of theirs. Crazy and vile as the couple were, it was also well-known that they had a great nose for money. He must somehow break the interest of this crowd! Otherwise, even if they escaped a brawl, Valjean would find far too much interest come the way of 'Ultime Fauchelevent' and there was no time to spare for hiding and escaping anew.

"Woman, shut your mouth, and clear the way," he said, trying to thrust Madame Thénardier aside with his stick.

"Not 'til she says it herself!" she protested, even as she was forced back a few steps. "Ah, my gal, will ya do it? Can you deny yer own mother and father, who loved you as a little babe? Can you, my dear Éponine, my own sweet lil' daughter?"

When the girl looked up, it was easy to spot the tears gathering in Éponine's eyes, and Javert swore internally. Damn the foul old witch who would use a girl's soft heart against her! But then, the girl swallowed, put a calming hand over her father's heart and met the greedy eyes of the woman who had sold her away. While Éponine's lips trembled and her cheeks had lost all colour, there was the steely resolve of a soldier running towards the bayonet to read in every line of her body, and her head was held high in pride.

"My father," she began, only to find her voice deserting her. Drawing in a further breath, she made to speak again. "My – "

In that moment, a high shriek tore through the air – a dying fawn, a lady in terror – and as one, the crowd turned to look. They saw a blonde girl running towards them, her high, clear voice still rising in that fearful tone. Her hair flowed behind her, a ribbon spilling down her back, and she had the look of a nymph chased by the hounds of Hades himself.

"Father! Éponine!" With a loud sob, Cosette threw herself at the pair. In his surprise, Valjean staggered slightly, before wrapping an arm around her too, drawing his daughters even closes. "I have been so afraid!" Cosette wailed. "Those men tried to grab me!"

Her finger pointed straight at two further gang members; Babet, he with the sour face, and Claquesous, whom Javert was now certain that he recognized from other circumstances. Without needing any further prompting his constables collared the two; when Babet tried to run, he was summarily punched in the kidneys and fell to the ground, wheezing.

"Oh, my dears," Valjean said, his trembling hand stroking their heads; one dark, one light, both pressed against his chest. For the first time since Javert had laid eyes upon him, he seemed to be weighted down by each one of his years. "Oh, my darlings, I am so sorry."

"Please do not be alarmed," Cosette said with a pitiful little sniffle. "A gentleman came to my aid."

Events had occurred quickly, one after another, but upon observing the way Cosette made certain to keep her face hidden against her father's coat, and the timbre of her voice – clear and carrying throughout the square, despite her apparent sobbing – Javert suspected that they had not, in fact, occurred at random.

If so, the final player in their little drama was waiting for his cue to reveal himself, and Javert should give it to him before the Thénardier's finished with their whispered conference and stirred up further trouble.

"Cuff the lot," Javert ordered to his nearest constable and handed him his own restraints, "and keep a sharp eye on the old man and the hag." Then he turned to Cosette. "Who came to your assistance, Mademoiselle?" he asked. "Please; I understand that you are upset, but we shall need all witnesses to ensure that these criminals face their just punishment."

"Oh! Yes! I'm the one!" Another familiar shape stepped forward from the shadow of a gate, and Javert allowed himself an internal sigh of relief. He had been wondering where the blasted boy had been hiding in this life.

His relief was as short as the time it took Pontmercy to clear his throat and begin speaking. Instead of simply agreeing with everything Cosette said, he began prattling on about them being childhood friends, how they used to meet in the park, what terror had enveloped him at seeing his dear, lovely –

"Yeah? And what's 'er name then?" the Thénardier woman asked, her grin sharp and wicked. "Eh? You call 'er friend; I used to call 'er serving girl, 'til this old fellow," she tossed her head in Valjean's direction, "stole her away for his own foul uses."

At that, Valjean frowned. A moment later, however, his lips shaped in a smile which was, for him, unusually sinister. "A moment, Madame! It is you who dare lay claim to my daughters, and as such, I would first have your _husband_ speak her name," he spat. "In fact, I wish to hear him name both my daughters, before he dares sully their reputations with further claims."

Thénardier tried to shake off the hands of the constable on him, but when he found that both handcuffs and grip were unyielding, he looked up the best he could and proclaimed in a loud voice. "Ye think I don't know my own girls? That's Éponine, my daughter, and the other one I've fostered since she was a babe; it's Courgette."

For a heartbeat, there was utter silence in the square. Pontmercy's mouth silently formed the name he had learned, eyes crossing in consternation as understanding set in. Valjean's smile was melting into the rarely used mask of patronizing pity Monsieur le Maire had used when questions regarding the sense in feeding the poor – since they would then only survive to need be fed another day – were put to him. Held fast beside her husband, Mme Thénardier closed her eyes and groaned loudly, as if she'd just been kicked by a horse.

The fool glanced her way, still not comprehending. "What? Wha'd I do?"

And there, perfect! A gamine somewhere in the crowd let out a loud, braying laugh, and the spell of fascination shattered; the nasty cackle of the mob swelled and broke, whispers and whistles peeking through its waves, the full weight of its ridicule aimed at Thénardier.

"Courgette? _Courgette_?" Valjean said with mock offence. "You'd have named your foster daughter for a pumpkin? Then I am twice as glad that I can claim her as my own blood!"

"Enough of this farce," Javert said, not bothering to disguise his the twitching of his lips; he couldn't have hoped for such a fine outcome if he'd given it three lifetimes to plan! "No, not another word from either of you; save your tears and give your excuses to the court."

Soon, his constables led off Thénardier, his wife and three of his men in handcuffs, insults and mocking laughter following them, while Javert escorted the gentleman and his daughter to safer streets. The student trailed after them, while through the secret roads known only to the urchins of the street, a boy called Gavroche had been sent with a coin and a message to the nearest known outpost of the Sûreté.

The message asked if Javert's esteemed colleagues might, perhaps, be interested in putting some questions to suspected members of the Patron-Minette robber gang? For he'd be happy to give them both the case and the five scoundrels... and nobody would be the wiser that it was because Javert thought he might try and wring the maggot's neck, if he must speak to Thénardier longer than a minute.

When they reached a wider street, Pontmercy took some initiative and hailed a carriage. Javert wrote down his name and address, not surprised that the young man's attention was nailed almost entirely to Cosette. She in turn was mostly concerned with her sister and her father, who were both subdued and nervous. Éponine's eyes flicked from doorway to doorway and her breath was shallow and fast, while Valjean's gaze kept straying upwards; to the roofs, to the walls, and and his fingers moved as if he was mentally scaling them all.

Valjean managed to find his senses enough to manage a distracted thank-you to Pontmercy, attempted to press a coin into his fingers and then forgot him entirely when the young man declined.

"It was my pleasure to be able to help you," Pontmercy said to Cosette before she stepped into the carriage. "Would you– That is, might I– Permit me to visit later and ensure that you remain well, Mademoiselle?"

For the first time since the square, Cosette's attention weighted fully on him. By all appearances, the girl approved of what she saw. Blushing in a fetching way, she nodded and allowed him to kiss her hand, though she warned Pontmercy to not appear for at least three days.

"My father's nerves," she whispered, "I do not think we will receive guests..." The worry in her eyes when she looked at Valjean was impossible to miss.

Bowing, effusive with thanks, Pontmercy accepted, then continued to press his gratitude upon the girl and Valjean. In the end, Javert was forced to shoo him off so that they might take the carriage in peace.

"If you wish privacy, I can ride outside," he muttered to Valjean, whose hands could not remain from touching the two girls; stroking their hair, arranging the sleeves of their dresses and fluttering in worry between them.

"What? Oh, no, no..." When Valjean turned to him, there was such anxiety written on his brow, that Javert felt it as a physical blow. "Please, remain, my friend. I am more grateful than you can imagine. If you hadn't, oh Lord above, if they had caught us alone..."

"Then you'd still have the strength to snap the rat in two," Javert told him, stern. "Take hold of your worries now, Monsieur. they are arrested and you are safe!" But his hand when pressing Valjean's was gentle, as were the reassurances he gave Éponine. Her old family was too heavily involved in crime to walk easily out of jail, even without her witness brought against them; yes, he was certain of that.

During that short carriage ride and the walk up to the apartment, which Valjean locked and bolted shut as soon as they were inside, Cosette was the calmest. She spoke softly to her father, each word a gentle raindrop on his flaming worry, then hummed a little tune as she took her sister by hand and led her to their rooms.

Only now, when they were alone, when the girls could not witness it, did Valjean truly fall to pieces. It disturbed Javert on the deepest level to see him so; for so many years, Valjean had been the star he adjusted his compass by, his presence and inherent goodness a solid handhold in the whirlpool of lives. Though he helped his friend to the comfortable settee, brought him a dab of spirits and finally, with a glance at the closed door, allowed himself to sit down next to him and even put an arm around his back, he knew not what words could ease Valjean's worry.

None of the reassurances Javert attempted; the fact that Thénardier was in the hands of the law now, the reliable papers Valjean had been able to draw up for his girls with Fauchelevent's help, or the plain truth that his fortune gave him a far greater leverage than he acknowledged – managed to calm him down.

Finally, Javert dared lay a hand on his face, forced the tear-glazed eyes to look his way. "I do not know how to convince you," he whispered, "but I swear to you, on everything that is holy, that I will not rest until your family is safe. Do you understand me? I will bring down that man with Justice, I swear he will pay for the crimes he has already committed, and you will not be threatened again." He dared press his lips to Valjean's cheek, felt the other man fold against him and let out a shuddering breath.

"If I thought it necessary, I would gladly shoot both Thénardier and his wife for your sakes," Javert admitted. At that, Valjean attempted to draw back, but he would not let him out of the embrace just yet. "I believe I know your protest already; it would be an unlawful act, beneath me." Another kiss, upon his brow, before he spoke again. "I would do it, but I won't. I do not need to, my friend. You must believe me: there is Justice in this world, and it will not let Thénardier escape for much longer."

"Even if it didn't," Valjean replied with something close to his old surety, "you should not take the law into your own hands so. Better for me to escape again, just take the girls away and find a new safe haven."

The thought of how mad it was that Valjean should argue the lawful path to Javert flitted through his mind, but the words had served their purpose. Valjean's worries seemed soothed and his eyes were dry when he gave Javert a soft kiss of gratitude; a mere peck on the lips, but far more than they had ever done with others in the apartment.

Both of them realizing this, they moved apart until they sat at an almost modest distance from each other; perhaps their legs still touched, perhaps Javert's remaining hand on Valjean's shoulder was no longer necessary to comfort a worried friend, but for another few moments there was no one to see and they permitted themselves these freedoms.

Two weeks later Marius Pontmercy arrived at his desk in a tizzy, quoting a hidden note and rambling about a secret journey to England. Javert feared for a moment that his greatest nightmares had come true. If Valjean had taken fright, left him behind, left everything –

Then he realized that the boy had been only to Rue Plumet and was unaware that Valjean possessed another apartment in Paris. It put him in a slightly embarrassing position, for he neither wished to lie nor reveal Valjean's whereabouts without his permission. Finally, he promised to make some enquiries and return if he heard anything further.

Once his shift was finished, he hurried to the Rue de l'Homme-Armé and was relieved to find the family present. Valjean had been disturbed by an unknown presence creeping around their home, and decided to evacuate the area completely.

When Javert managed to catch Cosette alone and ask if it had been her suitor or not, the girl blushed crimson, admitting it all without a word. However, she assured him that Pontmercy could not account for all times Valjean had sensed another presence, and that was far more worrying than any youthful indiscretions.

Trying to hide his worry, Javert left the family with some reassuring words and returned to the station. He could see no reason for anyone but the lovelorn student to sneak around Valjean. Was it the missing member of the gang? The police had searched for Montparnasse, but found no trace of the fop, and it had been assumed that he had gone to ground.

Drumming his fingers at the stack of reports, Javert finally took his hat and left for the city jail; something was deeply wrong and he could not sit by and trust the words of others.

When he stormed back in, it was with enough righteous fury that every officer and clerk present at the station glanced his way. One dared ask what was wrong, and quickly came to regret the question; the torrent of curses and verbal abuse Javert heaped over every corrupt official and rotten policeman was as impressive as the volume with which he delivered it.

Finally, when the Prefect himself arrived, Javert was forced to explain his anger.

"They have let them escape! The entire blasted Patron-Minette gang, robbers and murderers every last of them, and they are not there! Oh, don't give me that look!" he snapped at an officer whose scepticism was easy to read off his face. "I know perfectly well what it says in the reports and I am telling you, the reports are falsified! There are four men and a woman in the correct cells, but not _one_ of them is named Thénardier or Jondrette! Bribes! Damned bribes and greedy liars who dare call themselves the law! And now we have had these villains walking freely on the streets of Paris, while the entire police force passes by in ignorance!" He turned to the assembled officers, of which more than one appeared amused at his rage. "If this insult to justice does not bother you, can you not imagine the damage to our reputation? The case might not be ours, but the jails! We'll be the laughing-stock of every thief and gamin; I tell you, the whispers of this have already reached deep into the gutters, and every one of us will come to regret this failure thrice over!"

"Enough now, Javert," Gisquet said, "though I fear you are right in the particulars." His brow was deeply furrowed and the policemen surrounding them nodded darkly as he spoke on. "Tensions are rising in the city; we will need to cooperate with all other arms of the law to keep Paris under control. This disgrace, if it becomes widely known, will surely add to our problems. And if we can not rely on our own reports, on each other, how will we keep the entire institution from trembling when we can least afford it?"

Trying to calm the pulse hammering in his ears, Javert inclined his head to the prefect. "Pardon my temper Monsieur Prefect." Gisquet waved his excuse away, and Javert hurried to continue. "Please, I request to be assigned the case of putting these villains back where they belong. I know we relinquished jurisdiction of the Patron-Minette investigation to the Sûreté, but..."

"You have caught this Jondrette once," Gisquet agreed, "I see no reason you may not attempt catching him again. Once they are brought in, we can discuss who shall interrogate them between colleagues. A greater problem, I believe, is the worm in the prison structure. Inspector Sauveterre!"

"Sir?"

"Make certain that the rest of our prisoners are in place! Then find and deal with whomever saw fit to release the Patron-Minette gang."

The Inspector unfolded his lanky frame from a corner desk and bowed respectfully to the Prefect. "Of course, Sir." He then took his hat and, catching Javert's eye, inclined his head towards one of the filing rooms. "Would you accompany me, Inspector? I believe we might do well to work together in the beginning, so that we might uncover when these robbers were released and learn both who was involved, and where they might have gone."

"Unfortunately, I must decline. I need to alert my sources on the streets I immediately," Javert replied, making his own bow of respect towards the Prefect before he followed Sauveterre. "I shall join you as soon as I can."

"Ah, well," Sauveterre said, "then I shall busy myself with the joyful task of tracking paperwork and jail minutiae until you return."

Javert managed a weak chuckle at that, before he made his farewell and caught a cab towards the third arrondissement. He would alert every snitch and spy he had, in Saint-Michel and beyond, but first he must warn Valjean.

It was not an easy conversation, for Valjean's instinctual decision was to flee Paris. Only when Javert's pleas for him to remain were repeated by Éponine and Cosette's most heartfelt ones, did he consent to remain for another little while. However, Valjean absolutely forbid either girl to get in touch with anyone who knew them from before and gave strict orders to remain inside the apartment.

As Javert was taking his leave, Éponine slipped out with him. "I promised the porter's wife I'd lend her a tablecloth," she called, "please, Papa, the inspector is with me!"

Then she smiled, clutched his arm and attempted to slip a folded note into his hand.

"What is this? I will not go behind your father's back," Javert mumbled.

"Please," she said, lips barely moving, "it is for my sister. She has grown fond of the student who helped us... it doesn't give our address, only reveals that we remain in the city."

"I cannot –"

"Please, Inspector." Éponine turned to him while they were on the final turn of the stairs, where they could be seen neither from the apartment nor the street. "Cosette would not do anything foolish and even you must admit that father is being a bit... overzealous. She only wants this young man to know that we are safe."

Feeling conflicted, Javert accepted the missive. "I will have to read it myself, to reassure myself there is no risk to either of you," he told her sternly. "_If_ I deliver it – I have a great deal of work to do now, I can not run around looking for students and play postman for every lovelorn girl."

"Of course not," she said, sounding far too satisfied. "I'm certain Cosette won't mind waiting for an answer until after you have arrested the, ah, this escaped robber's gang."

"An answer? Mademoiselle, I am not a delivery boy!"

"Éponine?" Valjean called from up the stairs. "Are you coming soon?"

"One moment, Papa!" she answered. With a cheeky smirk, she put a finger to Javert's lips, shushing his further protests. "Please remember that my sister is relying on you, Inspector," she whispered, then ran down and deposited the tablecloth on a chair outside the porter's door.

"Good evening!" Éponine yelled to him as she rushed up the stairs, leaving Javert clutching the first love letter he had been asked to deliver in seventeen lifetimes.

As he walked out, Javert gave a sour look to the skies above. "If this is somehow crucial for my chances of success, I shall... I will not have my fate decided by two silly children, that is all. I absolutely refuse!"

When he noticed that his grumbling at the sky caused two labourers to carefully pass to the other side of the street, his mood plummeted even further. He stuck the note deep into his pocket, and turned his mind entirely towards the problem of finding the Patron-Minette gang.

As he discovered during the following days, it was not an easy matter. The criminals had disappeared thoroughly and none of the sources Javert had access too could give him a solid lead.

On the other end of the case, Sauveterre had only slightly more success in hunting down the person responsible for their disappearance. The jailer who had opened the doors was quickly found, but he provided documents – forged with plenty skill – ordering their release. Thus nothing could be pinned on him. What remained was tedious work: comparing signatures and tracking notes through the labyrinthine bureaucracy of the police.

On June the first, both their efforts came to a complete stop, as did most other open cases. General Lamarque's death had lit the fire beneath Paris' powder-keg, and the police prepared for several rough nights. With rumours buzzing like mad around them, each wilder than the last, tempers rose and internal investigations were pushed to the bottom of the heap.

Javert argued that the outbreak of lawlessness would come at Lamarque's funeral; the fact that most informants agreed with him, coupled with his experience in putting down a large uprising from Toulon, landed him the responsibility of organizing the local police.

Javert surprised his fellow policemen by not only stepping up to the task – few would have expected otherwise from him – but by drawing up several routes for them to take when the uprising began, coupled with surprisingly exact guesses of where barricades would go up. When questioned about it, he first quoted secret sources, then, with some annoyance, explained how this crossing and that back-alley was the only logical place to cut off a certain area, which the riot-prone inhabitants of the slums certainly knew by now. How could they not see that this square could be boxed off with only minimal effort, when any beggar knew that much? A few more examples delivered in this vein, and his orders were obeyed without any further protests voiced; at least not where Javert might hear them.

On the day before the rebellion, almost every able-bodied policeman was gathered in the Palais de Justice to receive orders, passwords and final instructions.

"The signs all point to this being a limited breach of the peace," Javert finished his briefing. "The national guard are close by and ready to move in. However, if we can contain the violence, if we can preserve the peace of the city for one single night, I believe that their spark will wink out and few must die – either soldiers or schoolboys."

"Do you really think we can keep a lid on it?" one of the officers asked with great scepticism.

"Not completely," Javert conceded. "Naturally, our first duty is to the crown and the innocent populace who stand outside any uprising. But, you must remember! We who walk the streets in light and dark, we know Paris. Better than the soldiers, better than those high above... better, even, than some of these young students who think they speak with the voice of the people, when really they only hear the echoes of their own idealism. If we can disrupt their organisation, if we can lead the national guard around the outer barricades and take control of wells and other resources, some will sneak away. Others might allow themselves to be talked down. Much bloodshed can be avoided if we act with cleverness and do not let the label of 'rebels' blind us to the truth; that these dissidents, too, are part of the people we are sworn to protect."

He rolled up the maps and orders and handed them out to the Inspectors responsible for each area. When he gave Sauveterre his, the man remained in front of the desk.

"Yes?" Javert asked. "What is it?"

"Your words today..." Sauveterre shook his head, and his stony countenance revealed very little of what he thought. "Some might consider them bordering on sedition."

"Do you?"

His fellow inspector shrugged.

"Has anyone ever heard of Javert breaking the law?" he asked philosophically. "If we come out of it alive, what harm can it do to attempt to bring some of those foolish young men along? I am making a remark, nothing more, nothing less. But, Inspector? Do take care."

"I have never taken more care in my life," Javert replied. "If tomorrow goes well, ah, if another morning is allowed to begin..." He closed his eyes and seemed, for a moment, immensely weary. Opening them and gazing up at Sauveterre, Javert's voice was low and tired when he answered. "I cannot see the future. I do not know how my orders will be interpreted. But I must voice them even so. I must carry out my duty, for tomorrow is my judgement day."

"Oh, I wager that the morrow will judge us all," Sauveterre replied. "But I think I shall not mind standing next to you, when we learn what the good Lord has planned for us all."

While Javert returned to his work, he considered his choices, trying to weigh them with an objective mind. Had he done the right thing? It was hard to know, and so many of his actions were limited by orders and duty.

No matter how he changed, he could not believe that any just fate wished for him to somehow join the uprising. It was doomed to fail, despite the fervent belief of those involved. The cost in blood if he truly betrayed the law, turned snitch and spy, might grow enormously. It could not be the right choice – and even if it was the one path that might benefit him, it was not in Javert to walk it.

Javert had last seen Valjean on the third of June. Now, though he wished intensely to go to him, to speak to him and find peace for a few more precious hours, he dared not leave his post. While he prepared his own disguise, packing a few necessary items in a secret pocket inside his vest, he found the undelivered letter to Pontmercy. In his eagerness to find Thénardier, he had completely forgotten to have it brought to the young man. Was it a mistake? Could it doom him? Javert weighed the note in his hand for a long moment, before shaking his head and stuffing it back into his coat. He did not know how to act regarding this letter, and his discomfort at even obliquely betraying Valjean was considerable. It was out of his hands now, anyway; Javert lacked the time to search for a rebel presumably hiding in some secret gathering place. If he saw him later, perhaps...

The funeral march progressed as always; Javert waited until the student leader raised his flag, then followed the crowd. He still couldn't reach the young soldier who had fired the first shot in time; wincing, he watched him be brought down by the mob. Then he took hold of a young revolutionary, pulled him away from danger, and a moment later they were all running for the alleys.

Keeping close to the revolutionary leader, he once again volunteered to gather information. It was a daring gamble, for he knew it might anger the man beyond reason, but Javert needed to return to his officers. He must ensure that his orders were carried out despite the chaos and worry that filled the city and influenced the police as well. As important as this one barricade was for him personally, Javert did not wish to walk out into a Paris where the military had massacred every other rebel.

His presence was worthwhile; with structured plans breaking down left and right, fear and thoughts of vengeance poisoned even calmer heads. Here, Javert's foreknowledge and absolute assurance that his information was sound made it easy for him to push events in the best direction. When he returned to the barricade, it was with the hope that they might quench the uprising with only half the loss of life there would have been without his interference.

Finally, his duty was done. What remained was saving his own skin.

Javert hailed the students and was allowed entrance again. This time, instead of speaking lies before them all, he asked for the leader to confer with him privately inside the café.

The young man nodded gravely, and turned to dispense some orders. "Combeferre, keep an eye on things. Courfeyrac, Marius, with me."

Despite his attempt to hide his face, Javert saw both Pontmercy and the little boy react to him. He was recognized, and now had only seconds or less to make his case.

"I am Enjolras, and have taken upon myself to steer our people in this fight," the leader said as the entered the café. "Please, speak. What have you heard?"

He wet his lips, sending up a silent prayer that he would find the right words. "I am Javert, Monsieur. Inspector Javert, of the Paris police."

A beat of silence, then with a snarl Enjorlas reached for his gun. "A spy!"

"No," Javert said, keeping his hands visible, well away from his body. "I came because I wish, above all, for justice to be done and for needless bloodshed to be avoided. I have walked among the people today, on both sides of the barricade and I have tried to see things with an open mind. And I can tell you this: You have no chance."

The barrel of a gun rising to his face interrupted his words. "I will hear no more of this talk," Enjolras said. "We speak for the people, and we demand freedom. If you came to deliver yourself as hostage in our hands, Inspector, I thank you, but I will hear no more of your treacherous words!"

On his right side, a loud click revealed that Courfeyrac had also readied his gun.

"If I had wished to bring you down with propaganda, would I have requested to speak with you in private?" Javert argued. "Please, hear me out! The national guard has been amassed for days already, waiting for this date. The path you have chosen can end only in misery, but it isn't the only way! I know there are great injustices in our land, I know our laws are not the best and fairest, that they protect the rich man more than the innocent –"

"Then why do you heel at their orders, Inspector?" Enjolras asked. He tapped the gun against Javert's forehead, eyes burning with the passion of the prophet. "You have chosen to become a dog of the government, trading freedom and pride against the crumbs of power they hand you. If the law is unjust, what of the man who carries it out? How many lives have you ruined, how many dirty, thieving bourgeois have you helped grow fat on the blood of their fellows? The rich are few! They are pathetic and helpless without men of your ilk to carry out their dirty work!" His voice was rising and curious faces peeked in through the door, Enjolras' intensity filling the room and spilling out on the street. "Each uniform covers an executioner for the government, a wild dog harrying the poor!"

"And what kind of society would we have without any order at all?" Javert interrupted. "If the law is wrong, then it is right to attempt to change it! But if there is no law at all, strength becomes the only rule. Your dream would fail, but even if it didn't your way would only bring back the days of terror!"

"Ah! And do we not live in those days already? Does this world not already speak with tongues of whips, write laws with the cudgel in hand? What can the poor man do but fight back? You speak of law, of order, but we have the law of nature on our side! We are the people. Our will is right!"

A bitter laugh escaped Javert then; he half suspected himself doomed already, and thought no more of guarding his tongue. "Your precious people, how you trust them to come join you tonight... You're wrong, boy, you are always wrong about that. _They will not rise_. The powerful have the law of might on their side! Their rule will not tremble this day. You boys, with all your fine words and grand dreams have not managed to wake the spirit of the Parisians. This is what I came to tell you! The barricades are falling, for there is no general uprising! Return home and live to fight –"

Not Enjolras, but a different student, dark of hair with a sneer on his face, gave Javert a blow in the side. He staggered, lost his breath, and felt strong hands grab him.

"Maybe he speaks the truth," this man said, "but he forgets the most important thing. Might and right and law and all; it is written by the winners, and only them! If we survive, if we grow strong, the children of our children will chant slogans against us! This endless cycle, this hopeless life – why not drink the wine, and fight the fight, and die merrily beneath a dream?"

"Grantaire, even when your words are right, your intent is misguided," Enjolras said. Then he raised his hand, a young god calling down benediction on them all, and spoke again. "My friends, don't heed their words! It is early yet, and we hear the noise of battle beyond our own barricade, don't we all? This dream is not ended, our message of freedom will never die! We have less intelligence on our enemy than I had wished, but our weapons are loaded and our hearts burn bright! Let us fight together, and show these doubters what a people united can do!"

Amid the general cheering, Javert had to speak twice before anyone paid attention to him. "They will come soon!" he shouted. "You have less than a quarter of an hour." Meeting Enjolras' surprised look, he smirked. "As I said... I did not come to spy, but to warn you. Quarter of an hour. And if you survive that, in the morning the cannons will roll in. Run, hide; expect no support for you will have none. But for God's sake, at least take that child away." He nodded towards Gavroche.

The little boy only scowled at him, clutching the gun tighter in his hands; small, they were, but already calloused and roughened by life. Javert's heart pinched as he remembered his corpse lying on the dirty street.

"Hurry! Man the barricade!" Enjolras called, gesturing to his men. "Return to your posts, everyone!"

"What about him?" Courfeyrac asked. "To shoot a spy is one thing, but..."

"Tie him up, leave him for now. Tomorrow, the people's court shall decide his fate."

"I can do that," Pontmercy muttered. "Jehan, bring me the rope."

While his friends dispersed, Pontmercy remained beside Javert and frowned at him, though he made certain to keep the pistol properly aimed. "What the devil are you doing here, Inspector?" he hissed. "You helped saved my Cosette's sister, could you not keep yourself busy with thieves and brawlers?" He swallowed, suddenly blinking away emotions. "My dear Cosette, who has journeyed beyond my reach..."

"This is not a brawl, then?" Javert muttered. "And I am here for a great many reasons. But, since it seems they are all failing again, I might as well deliver your letter."

"Letter?"

Just then another student returned with a rope and their opportunity to speak was gone. The warning calls of impending attack and his friends' eager pull drew Pontmercy away as soon as he had secured the prisoner.

Javert was left bound, half-choking and helpless, his frustration even worse than the physical restraints. He could do nothing now, could learn nothing new, and his words had made no impression at all.

Only little Gavroche remained, staring at him with a calculating expression. "You ain't the worst sort, Inspect'r," he said, then spat. "For bein' a bleedin copper. Oughtta have stayed home tonight."

"You –" A flicker of hope lit in him. Perhaps, if the boy would listen. He tried to clear his throat. "Did you overhear? Pontmercy and myself?"

Gavroche's smile was sunny and revealed nothing. "Maaaybe. What's innit for me?"

"There's a letter in the pocket of my coat." Gavroche did not look impressed. "And two francs in the other. Just take it all and deliver the damn thing to Pontmercy."

Clever fingers plucked the items from him so elegantly that he barely felt it and then the little urchin had the cheek to adjust Javert's cap.

"Told ya, not so bad for a copper." He leapt away and was almost out the door before Javert recalled that he had one more thing to say.

"Brat! Stay inside the damn barricade!" he cried, knowing that his warning would go unheeded,

unless he could somehow enforce it himself.

Minutes later, he heard the arrival of the national guard. When the first gunshots began echoing through the street, Javert felt himself shake with nerves, sweat dripping into his eyes.

What in God's name was he to do if the gunpowder – Another explosion, another failure, and he could not –

Javert came back to himself only when he realized that the sounds had changed from fighting to arguments; no further shots were fired, a military voice was ordering retreat, and no explosion had sounded. He was shaking in his bonds, drenched with cold sweat, and the noose around his neck was nothing to the coil of fear crushing his insides; terror had held him in its grip, had blinded him utterly. Now, Javert's relief at not having to suffer that death again, to choke on fire while boys torn apart like so much flesh suffered around him, almost brought him to tears.

Oh God, they lived. They still lived!

Swallowing down the sour taste in his mouth, he attempted to regain his bearings. In the distance, a gun went off, but it appeared that the battle had ended with victory for the students. He strained his ears, but could not make out anything clearly, although it seemed as if the voices grew louder. An indistinct shape grew clearer by the open door, turning into several men trying to navigate something unwieldy into the café.

"Gently, gently!" one of them called.

It was three students carrying a fourth; one of their wounded. Laying him on the rough floor, one of them bent over the wounded man and began removing his stained clothing, attempting to apply pressure. A gurgling moan escaped the victim, and Javert winced. The amount of blood he could see was bad enough, but that sound... this boy was more than halfway into his grave.

When Enjolras walked in behind them, his face was anguished, and he clutched a small cask of gunpowder in his hands.

"Can you do anything, Joly?" he asked. "He saved us all. It ought not be at the price of his own life."

The young man bent over the fallen revolutionary sat back on his heels, hesitating. Only now did Javert get a good look at the fallen boy and he shivered as he recognized him; Marius Pontmercy, his upper chest or shoulder torn apart by a bullet. There was still life in him, for he moved restlessly on the hard floor and soft sounds of pain escaped him, but the sight inspired no hope for survival.

"I have no proper materials," the one called Joly said, "nothing at all." There was blood all over his hands, and despite his words he continued working, sacrificing both his jacket and his waistcoat to try and stem the bleeding.

Enjolras bent his head, shoulders drooping while he stared down at the cask in his hands. His mouth moved silently and, if it had not been for the white-knuckled grip, he might have stood calmly in prayer. Then he nodded once, swiftly, and when he lifted his head there was a terrible light in his eyes.

"We shall avenge him, then, as we avenge all the unjust dead!" he proclaimed. "They shall all bleed in memory of our friends."

"Wait," Javert croaked, "wait, one moment!" Most eyes turned to him and he knew that he was in a perilous position; caught and bound, with these angry boys having no other enemy to vent their frustration on. Nevertheless, he had spoken, and now the dice were cast. "I carry medications. Something to dull his pain, at least."

His words caused a commotion, as more than one revolutionary was hesitant to accept anything from a spy. But Pontmercy continued to suffer, and when Gavroche reported that the Inspector was known for his honesty, their decision was made.

Though he did not seem overly happy with the prospect – You are terribly sweaty, Inspector; it's not something infectious, I hope? – Joly followed Javert's instructions and found the pockets he had sewn to the inside of his vest.

Then, he was upset by discovering the blade, though Javert argued that there was nothing odd about carrying a straight-razor around and the students hadn't searched him for weapons anyway; indifferent to the old jet-beaded rosary; slightly amused by the identification papers definitely making Javert's position as a policeman clear; and finally, disquieted at the implications of two hip-flasks filled with strong tincture of opium.

When Javert made it clear that he was not a laudanum addict but had brought the tincture in case he wished to escape certain death, the boy seemed only more distressed.

Joly knelt down next to semi-conscious Pontmercy and dripped a few drops of laudanum into his dry mouth. The bitter taste brought the young man wholly back to his senses, and after some grateful sips of water, he asked for Gavroche to be sent to him.

When he appeared, Joly squeezed the boy's shoulder for a long moment. Then he bent down, kissed Pontmercy's cheek, and whispered something to him before he left to join the others guarding the barricade.

Pontmercy and Gavroche spoke for a while, their words too low for Javert to hear. When finished, the boy marched over and held up the note he had earlier taken from Javert.

"This from 'is girl?" he asked.

Javert nodded, as much as he could.

"Read it. Loudly! Marius's too dizzy," he wiped his eyes with a grimy hand, but continued in a steady voice, "and I can't read."

Javert read: "M– Monsieur Marius, please know that though we are apart, I wait not far from you. I cannot reveal myself at this time, but rest assured that I will return to you. Keep safe, and trust in me. Your – " He cleared his throat. "Your Cosette."

"Is that all it said?" Pontmercy asked, his voice weak and strained. It was obvious that he had little time left.

"Nah, that wasn't all, the Inspector jus' skipped the mushy bits," Gavroche said, bringing the letter closer until it was almost pressed against Javert's nose. "Go on, no skimping!"

"It finishes," Javert spat out, "with the words 'your loving and faithful Cosette'."

Gavroche continued to stare at him, the letter held before Javert's eyes.

"Oh, for..." he said, squirming with the indignity of it all. "And it opens with the words 'my beloved Monsieur Marius', is that enough? Or do you wish me to recite the fool thing as if it was a poem?"

Managing a wet chuckle, Pontmercy waved a indulgent hand; that should be the laudanum working, then. "It is all fine, Inspector," he said, his head turning laboriously until he could see Javert properly, and he even managed a feverish grin. "Though, you wouldn't have a pen?"

"Right pocket," Javert and Gavroche said simultaneously.

Giving the little gamin a tired look which was answered with a wholly unrepentant shrug, Javert waited until the boy took out his pen. He was becoming quite weary of being manhandled thus, although he dared hope that Pontmercy's wish would help him out of his bonds.

Just as Javert suspected, while the drug offered a moment's relief from the pain, the youth was too weak to write a legible reply. Had there been anyone else with them, things might have gone differently, but only Gavroche was in the café. The gamin cut him loose without much fuss, then threw him the pen.

Though the boy made sure to keep his distance and held his gun trained on the inspector, Javert was essentially free. Before he did anything else, though, he would take the dying man's message. Pontmercy was pale as death, his every breath laboured and heavy, yet he struggled through the letter.

"Will you... Cosette?" he asked, the fresh bloodstains on his lips the only colour in his chalky face.

"The boy will take your message," Javert promised. He helped the weakened youth press the folded note to his lips, waiting to remove it until there was no breath of life left in Pontmercy.

At the moment when the young man's eyes turned dull and his hand grew lax, the river rose up around him; around him the café seemed to waver, the dirty floor turning sheer and revealing a great emptiness beneath. Javert felt the taste of dirty water fill his mouth and the sounds of life – the revolutionaries speaking in the distance, the torch crackling, the gamin sobbing for his friend – drowned in the rush of that hungry stream. He had failed, again, a decade's worth of struggle made worthless with the extinguishing of this single life. As realization came to him, the low light grew dimmer still, and they all seemed to sink into the depths of the Seine; sinful man, mourning child, and dead dreamer taken into the eternal void before his time.

"No," Javert whispered, reaching for the smudged gold of Gavroche's bowed head before he fell over senseless and dead; needing some support and seeing no other light beyond this child. "No, I refuse."

Not again; he could not do it, his entire being rejected the thought of doing it all over again... of losing all he had gained in this world. Pontmercy was dead, but Javert still lived. Valjean and his children were waiting on the other side of this night! Whether this world would lead to his salvation or not no longer mattered to him, for he wished to remain in this time; with all its graces and faults.

Did mortal man walk through the world, his every act calculated to gain access to the heavens beyond the grave? Perhaps the pious monk, perhaps a living saint, but Javert was neither! And he had no aspirations to become one of their sort; he only wished to live out a full lifetime and let whatever happened after take care of itself. It was his right, it was his deepest desire, and he would no more lie down and peacefully die than he had been able to give up the hunt for Valjean all those years ago.

"Gavroche!" His hand shook against the dirty curls, grasped the bony shoulders too tight, but the feel of those skinny arms was his only anchor to life. "You heard Pontmercy! You must deliver his letter – it was his last wish!"

"But where?" the child sniffled. "Dunno the address."

Of course he didn't; only Javert did. Now he saw it clear, how his tiny broken promise, his choice to put one duty 'fore another had led them here, had dumped them all in the river. But he would try to swim, as he had once failed to do; would grab hold and kick against the stream until he was torn apart, rather than sink in peace.

So Javert told the boy where to go, wrote a further message on the back of the note, and watched him disappear into the night. Then he sank back to the floor, feeling the weight of all the years almost physically pressing him to the ground. He covered his eyes with a hand, not wishing to watch the sorry corpse or the empty room, not yet having the energy to act.

Gavroche had taken his gun with him. The students had left no weapons with Pontmercy. Unarmed, alone... Javert might just manage to sneak out through the same back-alley Valjean had once released him through, or even attempt the sewers. But expected nothing but death to wait at the end of either of those paths.

No. It was here, behind this barricade, that his destiny would play out.

Perhaps he might still save a few lives, even if it could not make up for Pontmercy. It would not be possible to speak to the leader now; Javert knew the insidious pain of losing a man one was responsible for and how easily it twisted all thoughts toward vengeance. If Enjolras had some more time, he might come to see reason again, to understand that sacrificing all his friends to avenge one who could no longer care was pointless... but there was so little time for them all.

Javert rose to his knees, feeling the shadow of deaths press against his flesh for a moment; beheaded, drowned, stabbed, burned, strangled, hanged, crushed... He could hardly keep them all apart by now. Oh God, he was so weary, but would not yet allow himself to lie down and die.

One hand in front of another; once, twice, then dragging himself up by the wall, and he was standing. His steps grew stronger; though the room was still drawn in smoke and nightmares, his legs could carry him and the weight of death retreated further back into his mind.

Outside the café, the signs of battle were clear. Blood stained the ground, and from the corner of an eye, Javert spied three further bodies laid to their last rest. He glanced above; the sky was empty, offering no solace, no guiding lights at all.

He spotted a student staring straight at the café. Recognizing him as Courfeyrac, who had professed doubts at killing him, he silently hailed the man.

"Gavroche warned us that you were free," Courfeyrac said as Javert approached. Raising his gun demonstratively, he continued, "I thought you would have the sense to remain inside."

"Why did you not come to tie me up again?"

The gentleness around his eyes surprised Javert; he had thought them all either burning like Enjolras, or too young and idealistic like Gavroche and Pontmercy, but this youth seemed a different type.

"He asked me to read your note too, in case it was a spy's message," Courfeyrac said. "Clever one, he is. But I thought it safe enough to send him on. '_Keep this boy safe, under no conditions let him return to the barricade. Yours in eternal friendship, Inspector Javert'_, didn't sound like vital information." He cocked his head. "I assume it was not meant for poor Marius' girl?"

"Her father."

"Ah. Still, it will save our Gavroche and that is... that is a good thing indeed." He gestured to an overturned couch. "Have a seat, Inspector, and speak with me. Or go find rest in the café. We will not release you, but we are not barbarians for all that."

No, they were not. Javert sat down, and felt the seat waver beneath him. All that was dead matter was dissolving into the hungry water, and only the nearness of other living souls seemed to grant some tenuous shield against the void. Sleep, in this starless world? He would not dare, for he did not know which would be worse: slipping unknowing into death or awakening again to this life turned nightmare.

For a moment, they watched each other, the grey Inspector with too many lives behind him, and the fresh-faced student with too few years left.

"Why do you fight?" Javert asked.

He had many more questions, clarifications he wished to add, but this was what it boiled down to. They were young, they gambled so many sweet years on such an awful risk. They were not the poorest, those so desperately downtrodden that they had nothing left to lose, and they did not appear like men who thirsted for violence solely for its own sake.

Javert knew how desperation caused madness that could only be released through violence; he knew what he his informants had told him; but he knew not how these boys justified their actions to themselves. It suddenly seemed strange that he had never before asked.

Courfeyrac took a sip of wine, mulling over the question for a moment, and then he began to speak; of dreams and sacrifices, and the unspoken hope for a better future. His philosophy was far different from Valjean's unspecified kindness. Though it heaved somewhat towards the mindset of checks and balances that Javert himself followed, it contained within it the seed of a far grander thing; it was almost something one might term love, for the nation and the peoples within and without its stricture.

"What is this I hear?" Another smiling youth appeared. "Does our Inspector have a hankering for philosophy? Then let's see if we can't convert him to our cause before the sun rises!"

And this was how, on the threshold of death, Javert found himself discussing the ethics of revolution with the friends of the abased deep into the night.

Much later, when one could almost see the first grey light of morning, the only student awake was one Bossuet, who had drawn the watch. Javert himself was fighting off sleep by pacing back and forth, struggling to keep his eyelids apart, when he thought to hear a scraping sound from the heap of furniture.

Glancing at Bossuet, who was blinking tiredly at his lantern, he made his way towards the edge of the barricade. Javert knew of no plan to launch a sneak attack, but things might have changed during his absence.

While he had come to feel some sympathy, even a grudging respect, for the students, it was impossible for him to take their side against the forces of law. The only thing he could do, if soldiers were coming, was to stand aside and counsel them to mercy towards the revolutionaries.

Again, the scraping sound, some little thing falling loose. Quickly, Javert dared bend down and peek through the barricade. The torch the boys had attached still burned, and he saw the gleam of it reflected in a guardsman's hat; the man appeared to search for handholds. They were coming, then.

Withdrawing on silent feet, Javert walked to the side of the barricade, making as if he was still only pacing aimlessly as he had done for the last hour.

When next he looked, he was shocked to see a silhouette slowly, slowly climb over the barricade. How the man did it with so little noise, how he could even see where to put hands and feet, was a miracle, but what shocked Javert was the sheer gall. To climb a barricade, alone, in full uniform?

If Bossuet turned his head one degree, he'd spot him. His gun was loaded and held ready; the soldier could be dead before he had time to cry out! Javert couldn't believe a man would follow such an order, much less volunteer for the task. Only one driven by a deep personal need might risk...

Biting into his tongue until he tasted blood when realization came, Javert forced himself to remain unmoving, knowing the necessity of utter silence.

When finally the shadow touched ground, the barricade creaked at the loss of his weight. Javert walked swiftly towards Bossuet, heels clattering against the stone and coat rustling around his legs. He asked for some water, received a mouthful and said his thanks; all the time feeling the prickle between his shoulder-blades where a still undetected intruder was watching him. Finally, deeming enough time to have passed, he turned towards the smaller alleys, mumbling something about trying to find a bit of rest after all.

In these deep shadows, among the smell of poverty and refuse, waited Jean Valjean, and for all his anger and all his fear, Javert could do nothing but envelop him in a tight embrace.

"You are free," that dear voice whispered to him, and it was as if all the frightful shadows took wings and left only the mild starlit night. "Oh, it eases my heart to see you so."

"You are a fool," Javert replied. "The greatest fool! What in the world possessed you to come here?" He wished to shake Valjean, to rant and yell at him; he held him even closer instead and drank in the sound of his beating heart.

"You think I would leave you to die? The boy told me..." Valjean hesitated for a moment. "The news was heavy for Cosette. I had not even noticed her love for that poor young man, but I cannot argue the weight of her grief."

"It was my intention that you remain with her, to comfort her," he hissed, then another thought hit him. "And that you keep Gavroche safe!"

Now, it was Valjean's grip which grew tight around him. "How can you imagine I would forget about you? Have no worries for young Gavroche; he raged and screamed at us, but he is locked in safe and Éponine keeps her eye on him."

"And Cosette?"

Voice almost breaking with shared pain, Valjean said, "She has cried. Now, she prays. I wish... Oh God, I wish I could have come earlier, that I could have helped him somehow. It tears my heart apart to see her suffer so, but I could not wait any longer and risk losing you too. I only wish I could bring her beloved back with me as well."

And there it was: the path forward, the solution he had searched for. It bloomed in his mind, but unlike his previous insights, this was no shining rose of hope he saw, but a dried husk of a future.

For Javert's salvation, for the release of all these endless worlds from the cycle of time, Valjean must come to the barricade to save his daughter's beloved; another action underpinned by that mercurial emotion, love, in one of its many hues, leading towards the grace.

But for the next life to bloom, this one must first wither away.

"You should not have come for me," he whispered, even as he clung to Valjean, their bodies pressed together as if they were trying to break down the barrier of cloth and skin and flow together. "You should stay safe, forever..."

"I will not see you die if it is in my power to stop it," Valjean protested, and the outrage in his whisper was so heady that Javert pressed a kiss to his lips. It silenced him, foolhardy gesture that it was. For a few heartbeats, they allowed the dangers of the night to lie forgotten, kindling something beside fear in the silence between them.

"But, how you are free?" Valjean asked a little later, disbelief colouring his voice. "Have the students released you? You have not joined their side?"

"Of course not." Javert allowed himself a crooked grin, lips shaping it against Valjean's cheek so that he might know it even in the dark. "I have been given parole for the night, in exchange for my word of honour to remain here and not lift a finger against them, 'til sunrise at least."

"Parole? You, Javert?" Valjean could not keep his voice from rising in astonishment. "Truly, the world is upside down!"

"Perhaps, Monsieur, but this parole still does not allow for spies to be let inside our lines!" a stern voice called from behind Javert. "Hands in the air, you two, and step forward!"

The light of an uncovered lantern hit them then suddenly. When Javert turned, he saw four students facing him. One held the light, a sickly yellow eye that had found them in the dark and led the hungry waters their way. He saw how the men held their guns at the ready and knew they were cornered, while the rush of doom grew far too loud in his ears.

Slowly, Javert raised his hands, felt sand and cold water flow around each finger. Next to him, he sensed Valjean move, causing ripples in the stream of fate, and he knew at once that he must speak, that it was vital; a scant handful of words all that stood between them and the void.

"He is not a spy," Javert managed through the sand seeming to fill his throat, choking him with its uncaring judgement. "Please, he is..."

"A friend," Valjean said, taking half a step forward – no sands and streams to fetter him – widening his stance as if he was attempting to shield Javert. "I was worried, I came for personal reasons. Pardon my intrusion; there is no ill will behind it."

"He is no soldier, nor a spy," Javert whispered, "I swear. He is not."

"How likely," the one to the left said, the drunkard from his tone, "how common-sense. That we did not see this truth at once!"

Daring another step forward, Valjean stood fully in the light, and his voice was calming when he spoke. "Please, I know it seems unlikely! But I carry no weapon and mean you no –"

A tongue of fire, the bang of a pistol echoing so loud between the houses, and the sharp scent of gunpowder filling their minds. Javert stumbled forward, a scream caught inside him, and then a second gun spoke; a deeper voice, death's bell tolling, and the flash and the rising smoke seemed to laugh at him with the mirth of hell.

A babble of voices –

_Oh God!_

_What are you doing? _

_Enjolras, it went off in my hands! _

_I thought, when I heard the shot, that they – !_

– light wavering, the lantern falling to the ground –

_What happened?_

_What's going on?_

_Are they attacking?_

_It just went off in my hands!_

– and Valjean staggered, fell to his knees.

No.

When Javert caught him, he reeled beneath the limp weight, feeling his hands grow wet and slick where they touched Valjean's back. He knelt and lowered him onto his lap, cold mud seeping through his trousers from below while warm blood stained them from above.

God, no.

Perhaps a torch had been lit, perhaps the stars were granting this good man their final blessing, but Javert found that he could see him clearly even as the shadows covered all else. The dearly familiar lines of Valjean's face were twisted by pain, drawn in ashy grey above colourless skin, and only in his eyes remained the last spark of a vibrant soul.

"No," he managed, the word weak and useless against the threatening dark. "Valjean, no." And Javert found a trembling hand, pressed his lips to it, tried to hold it against death and saw that all his efforts meant less than nothing.

I'm sorry, Valjean mouthed, squeezing his hand in a weak reply. He managed one more breath, and with it spoke his daughters' names, and then there was no more light in his eyes.

"No. No, no..."

There were no tears in Javert, there were no thoughts or words or hopes; ashes and mud, all his hope and love growing cold in his worthless hands.

He did not cry when Enjolras offered his condolences and a sober apology for the too hasty actions of his men. He did not cry when he gathered Valjean's head close and spoke the Lord's prayer for him, dead words falling from dead lips, meaningless phrases to speak for one who had long ago stopped needing them. He remained kneeling on the street, tearless and silent with only the cooling body for company until a jaundiced sun swept away the curtain of night.

Then, he arranged Valjean's body; fastened the collar, crossed the stiff arms above his chest, and laid him to rest in the filthy alley.

Javert's notebook was still with him. Though his letters were clumsy and the paper stained with mud and blood, he wrote the address to which to deliver the body; laid his own identification papers there too, so that his words would not be ignored. He wished distantly that he could have shed a tear for Cosette and Éponine, children losing so much in one night, but everything had been burned from him but his miserable life.

When the second attack came, young men fought and fell around him, dying for their ambition of a better world. Javert stood silent and awaited the thunder of the cannons, without even the hope that they would send him to the endless dark.


	6. The last picture painted

Pardon the delay with this chapter; it's quite long, so it took some time to edit. Once more I wish to extend my gratitude to my betas Morgan and Voksen!

* * *

**The nineteenth time**

He rose gradually to consciousness, the waters of the Seine unwilling to release him; he was tired enough that he did not mind remaining in their embrace a while.

He rose, slowed by his pains and sorrows. When he made the bed, the mild scent of lavender teased his senses and he recalled a spring day and an arm crooked comfortably in his own. The sharp ache made him clumsy and a pillow fell to the floor. He bent to retrieve it slowly, his old soul weighing down his battered body.

Outside his room, the maid hummed her familiar tune while she passed his room; the never-changing pails of water in her hands. Though he was still in his nightclothes, he grabbed his greatcoat, buttoned it hastily and went to help her. Another lonely moment was more than he could bear.

Upon returning to his room, his body went through the familiar motions; shaving – with hands that barely shook – washing, dressing properly. He watched the face in the mirror; young, by God, young again but marked so deeply by sorrow.

But only sorrow, today. Nothing darker, nothing close to that twisted being he had seen in his reflection the last time he awoke in this room.

He had bolted from sleep in wild despair then, had thrown on his clothes, forgotten his hat, and escaped from the town in a thunder of hooves. Behind him, the yells of his men had rung ignored. He had ridden towards the distant sea, whipping his horse into a foamy lather to heed the call of that great empty water that offered him a false promise of relief.

Thoughts too heavy to stand, he had been halfway wishing to throw himself into the depths, to simply die and die and die forever until there was no mind left in his broken body; only the panicked bucking of his horse had thrown him off this path. When the beast had bolted, he'd been left dizzy and aching on the ground. He could not even manage to break his neck properly, and, before he could escape, two of his men caught up with him.

They had been confused and suspicious of his actions; had brought him back to town and thought to take him to his superior. He had been too tired to protest, until he realized that their road led to the mayor's office; then, he'd balked. An argument erupted, ending only when he realized that the lingering crowd and the broken down cart must mean the mayor was already gone. A day's reprieve.

This sight had given him back some sense and he had drawn the tatters of authority around himself; convinced the men to take him to the church, where he had collapsed in a shadowed alcove before the empty eyes of a distant saint. There, he had knelt on the stone floor, his hands clasped in false prayer, without a speck of hope left.

For hours he had remained such, torn between his longing for oblivion and the fear of where death would land him next (the same morning the same morning you must meet him the same morning he doesn't know the same morning he isn't the same never the same), caught in the demonic jaws of indecision and unable to move, even as he had known that remaining could only rip him apart.

Darkness had fallen and the false colours of the church windows were wiped away by the shadows; mud beneath, muddy darkness above, dirt in every Word and thought. Into that dark church another lost soul had stumbled. Staggering beneath the weight of her burdens, she had fallen to her knees in front of the Virgin Mother. Her prayers had been too fervent and too loud, so unskilled and interrupted by enough pathetic sobs, that his mind pounded with the agony of her honesty, until he thought he might throw up from the pitiful weight of her hope.

For she had it still, that which his fear had drowned; through her misery, inside her terror, there was that pulsating artery of a heart still _believing_. As much as it had disgusted him, his eyes searched for her in the dark church and his ears strained to hear the words inside her babbling. This woman who had died for her child so many times, who had suffered so many indignities, yet fought to the bitter end in each life he had known her.

He found them both repulsive. The woman who fumbled her single chance to a proper life – the failure of a man who could not manage to change anything, keep anything, be anything but a failure no matter how many changes he was given.

Oh, how he had wished that he could hate her properly, that he could steel his heart against her hopes and struggles.

Like a thin nail driven into a plank at the right spot can crack a length of unyielding wood, this tiny wish, this petty, foul dream had been enough to break him apart. His wishes had come pouring back in, had widened the cracks, splintered his soul until he was reeling with pain; and still she had remained crying and praying, hoping and hoping and hoping for one more day of life, one more reprieve from the abyss of the destitute.

And finally the splinters that were all that remained of him had bowed in awe of her hope; had dared share it once more. He had clambered to his feet and looked up into the painted eyes of St. Maurice, he who protected the soldier and walked into death without lifting his own sword; the smallest, simplest prayer had escaped him then.

"Please, my Lord, show mercy."

Then he had walked to the woman, taken her hand, and brought her to the home of the one who could help. Had knocked, and the door had opened, and he had closed his eyes lest he shatter at the sight. But his mouth had worked; he had spoken without seeing, pushed the woman inside and heard her begin her tale while he walked off into the night.

He had walked down the street, turned a corner, imagined the pistol his men had taken from him and the relief it could give, knowing no escape and no end. On that walk, while fully feeling the suffering that only hope could bring... The pain of one who must dream of mercy were none is to be found... Then, he had thought he knew what Hell was.

And then there had been a hand on his shoulder, and Valjean's voice had spoken to him through the dread, and the word had been a hesitant "Inspector?" and it had broken his world.

He had wept then, had fallen to his knees on a dark street in Montreuil-sur-Mer and cried for all that he had lost. Wept for the love that still filled him, so sharp and useless like broken glass. Wept for the world that was beyond his reach, and wept most of all for this man whose comforting voice betrayed no familiarity at all, and whom Javert still had the temerity to love.

But instead of calling him mad, instead of fleeing from him, Valjean had pulled him to his feet and taken him to his home. There, in the warmth, among the candles, the housekeeper had put out bread and drink for the mayor and Fantine and Javert too, had been invited to share the table. He had confessed then, had told of all he knew, his rambling tale of destiny and death. He had told of the Bishop's gift and Cosette's life, and they had stared in shock. He had spoken of Toulon and the foreman's wandering hands, and all the misfortunes that he knew and they had trembled – but had also believed him.

Then the mayor hastened to order two girls be brought to him immediately, money no limit; while Fantine asked him to describe her daughter grown once more, as if she sensed the shadow in her lungs which would keep the sight from her in all lives. And before the night was over, they had spilled further tears together for cruel time, which always ran too fast and never lasted long enough for love.

Come morning, Monsieur le Maire allowed Javert to kiss his hands, had spoken a prayer for his soul; no revulsion to be found in him, only infinite pity and a gentle curiosity.

And he and Fantine had stood together, had waved farewell together, while Javert rode off towards Paris.

His fears had haunted him still, and each moment of warmth recalled a happier time, each bed was too large and empty without his presence; but his grief was freed, and every memory mourned washed another dagger from his soul.

So had he reached Paris: hurt, but not broken. Grieving, but no longer without hope. And he had gone through the alleys where they had died, climbed into the bowels of the city, had mapped the underground passages and tried to learn the twists and turns of each road to escape.

When he had finished, when he knew every route to escape through the dark, then Javert had gone to the bridge where it all began and ended. He had consigned his soul to Fate once more, for there was nothing more for him in this world. He left – not falling down into the void, but diving towards the future, in search of the place where hope bloomed and he might at last find the path his soul longed for.

Now, when Javert saw himself in the mirror, he saw a hard man who had been broken and reforged and wavered on the edge of everything. There were still cracks in him; how could there not be, when his every fault had been torn open and repaired over and over again?

But like the memories inside, the scars he could see were only witnesses of the road travelled, and as he recalled all the sorrow and anger, weighed it against the fleeting moments of joy, he amazed himself with this thought: that the scales still balanced. To know Valjean's secret smile again, to know his nearness and, if only for a petty moment, stand in the world together...

Perhaps he would falter and perhaps he would fall. Certainly there was not strength enough in him to rise back up many more times, but beyond the fear waited grace and he was sworn to follow.

With a final prayer, Javert adjusted his hat and took his cane, and then he braved the hardest thing of all his lives; he walked out to meet the day and did it with the knowledge that his heart was defenceless before love.

* * *

Their steps echoed on the wide marble stairs; Javert's secure and steady, while Valjean's were slowing the further up they came, his soles dragging on the stone as if he knew not whether to turn back or attempt to tip-toe his way through this bastion of Law.

Finally, when he had fallen dozen steps behind Javert turned and looked down at him, twirling his nightstick impatiently. Valjean raised his hands in an apologetic fashion, but though he hurried to catch up, one could not escape the impression that he was sneaking in where he was not allowed to be.

"Come," Javert chided, "I have told you that I have permission to be here at night. Nobody shall mind a guest. Nobody will question your presence."

"Pardon," Valjean murmured. "But it is..." Looking around at the gilded lamps and stern men in heavy frames that gazed out at them from the corridors, he made a helpless gesture at the splendour.

"Yes, it is the Palais de Justice," Javert said in a tone that made it clear that they had discussed the topic further than his patience stretched, "but these stairs are merely stone, as my uniform is only cloth. The building is not the same as its purpose; that honour falls on the work done here every day. Now come, or we will attract attention." And he moved the stick to his other hand and held it behind Valjean so that he must hurry up or feel it's weight against his spine. Once Valjean was walking at an acceptable speed, Javert once again stomped ahead, tramping on each step as if it had personally offended him.

They were stopped by no one, though one guard saw and hailed them, which had Valjean grabbing his elbow in a bruising grip.

Upon reaching the top level, Javert took out the little key to the rooftop chapel he had received this morning; while he had not minded taking the attic way until he was officially granted permission to visit this chapel, he had suspected that Valjean would not stand for such a path. Instead, he had waited with some impatience until this privilege had been granted him once more.

When Javert closed the door behind them, shielding them from the Law in this little room devoted to God, Valjean made no effort to hide his sigh of relief. Deciding that he'd better not bring up the fact that they would have to walk back out, in case he'd attempt to climb down the building façade instead, Javert opened the door to the roof. It slid open as easily as ever and he stepped out into the balmy night air.

"Oh..." Valjean followed him, and his face softened with delight as he beheld the Notre-Dame in starlight.

"Did I not promise to show you the Paris that I knew?"

Javert stepped up on the edge of the balustrade, letting his gaze sweep over the city; sleeping and yet not, Paris at night was his to guard. It remained both his duty and saving grace to feel the weight of that shield, to know that his strength helped hold it aloft and helped protect so many. To watch the city from this heart of Law itself helped remind him this; made the duty a pleasure in the same breath. Only when his eyes slid over the distant river, did Javert's lips thin with disdain, though he nodded towards it as one might to a familiar adversary. Another round was nearing its end...

The yank at his coat upset his balance; for one vertiginous moment Javert swayed on the parapet, before he stumbled gracelessly into Valjean's arms.

"What the blazes are you doing?" he spat, batting at the other man's grip, pulse racing as recollections of other, longer falls rose within him.

"I? You are the one who stood –" Valjean sounded outraged and his hands bunched the coat even tighter. "You were not even looking where you put your feet! If you fall from this height..."

Glancing at the parapet, Javert tried to recall if he had managed any steps before Valjean yanked him back, then dismissed the matter as unimportant. Of all the things to fret about!

"I will not fall off a roof," he insisted haughtily. "And let go of me, before you tear my clothing!"

"I knew you liked to go up in the church tower to watch Montreuil-sur-Mer, but I had no idea you indulged in such... such..." Valjean shook his head, the perfect likeness of a father too outraged to find words to describe the latest foolishness of his child.

Javert did not appreciate the image and, pushing Valjean away with a firm hand, he took a slow, deliberate step up the parapet, his stick kept between them in a clear warning. "I am not your child to need scolding," he reminded him, "nor am I your underling any longer. And for your information, you wall-scaling, sea-diving, mountain-climbing old parole breaker – do not frown at me so, for if you treat me as the boy I have not been for decades, I may as well treat you as the con you no longer are – there is a perfectly simple reason that I never stepped out at the edge of the bell tower in Montreuil-sur-Mer. Two, in fact: the railing is rounded, and anyway, I would have hit my head on the roof."

Seeing that Valjean was furtively edging closer, Javert gave him a mocking smile and walked, backwards, towards the further edge of the roof while keeping Valjean and the great stone eagle well in sight. While he did not fear a misstep, not from this particular ledge, it would be beyond embarrassing if he mistook the distance in his annoyance and his foot landed on nothing. He need not have worried about going too far; after only three steps Valjean yielded, backing off and raising his hands in surrender. He still appeared honestly frightened for Javert's sake and had it not been so annoying, he might have appreciated the show of concern.

"I do not fall," Javert repeated, tapping his stick against the edge, "unless men like you upset my balance first."

Wetting his lips, Valjean gave a hesitant nod. "I see your point. Nevertheless, for the sake of my nerves, would you _please _get off that ledge?"

"You need only ask, Monsieur," he said and gave a polite bow, stepping down until the parapet was between him and the empty air.

Never burdened with an inclination to vertigo, the years had stripped Javert of all fear for such mundane depths. He still opted not to protest when Valjean sidled between him and the edge, using the excuse that he wished see the city better. They had come up here because Javert wished to show him that view, after all.

Only a few clouds drifted over the sky, though they had earlier lain like a ragged blanket over the moon. Now, dispersing in the wind, they fluttered away, so that both the city and the great cathedral were washed in milky light.

"Do not worry about me," Javert said and took Valjean's hand, guiding it so he might more easily find the sights Javert wished to show. "Look, instead, at this city I serve and care for."

And he spoke: of crimes he'd seen committed, in alley and wealthy house alike; of how bound his hands could be in the latter case; of the tiny moments of heroics – a small dog attacking a burglar, a woman protecting her child from her drunken husband, a boy climbing a pipe to escape a fire with his brother clinging to his back – and the tragedies and laughters that graced all souls in the city.

Most of all, he attempted to share his delight at those odd, coincidental moments where the ordinary transformed into beauty, whether by the grace of sunlight on a particular day, or even the mournful elegance of a gathering thundercloud. He tried to explain the rhythm of steps upon cobblestones that turned from clatter into dance for a few heartbeats. Or, equally precious and even more rare, the sudden stillness that might take even this great city; the way it pulled every face towards the heavens, as if great silent wings swept over the crowd for a moment.

So many moments, all of them hard to share in a way that did them justice; that was why Javert had brought them here tonight, to where he had always seen Paris at its clearest.

He had spoken for some time, lost himself in memories and vague dreams, when he became aware that Valjean stood so close that he could feel the warmth of his body. His eyes were closed and a small smile seemed to be playing on his lips.

Breaking off, Javert stepped away from him and leaned back against the roof. He crossed his arms, uncrossed them and grasped his stick tighter, then crossed them anyway, glaring at Valjean meanwhile.

"Why did you finish so abruptly?" Valjean asked, following him. "I have not heard you argue a cause so passionately since a councillor suggested that all jail-time ought to be exchangeable for fines. And, while your rhetoric at the time was impressive, I find it far more pleasant to hear you praise the virtues of Dame Paris."

"You should not humour me," Javert replied, "I can see when someone is about to fall asleep from my lectures."

Cocking his head, Valjean observed him in silence for a moment. "I was listening," he insisted, "I merely could not follow the particulars of where any given episode took place; your grasp on the local geography has always far surpassed mine. To better concentrate on your words, I opted not to try. It is not where an event happened that matters, no? It is all your Paris, in the end."

"Don't mock me," Javert said.

"I'm not." He shook his head and dared brush a hand against Javert's shoulder. "It is my Paris too; and my daughters' and a thousand other souls' as well. But tonight, you showed me your city. I find it fascinating to see this undiscovered treasure in what I thought I knew so well, my friend."

There was silence between them for a while before Javert inclined his head. "I apologize for my hasty conclusions, then. Though the subject is dear to me, it is not one I am used to sharing with others."

Waving him off, Valjean rested his back against the tiles, and turned his face towards the heavens. "We both tend to ramble, I suppose, and have not always found willing listeners. One of the many things I missed when I moved from Montreuil-sur-Mer was mulling over my thoughts and then having them tested by you. Letters only go so far..." He gave Javert a fond look, then whispered the next words as if they were a secret admission. "Though I found it considerably easier to structure my arguments and poke holes in yours when my only opponent was a piece of paper rather than a stubborn Inspector – who dared come up with the most uncomfortable counterpoints to my elegant words." The grin he threw now Javert was so full of mischief that it took at least a decade away from his features.

"I'm afraid I must disagree with you again regarding the ease of correspondence for discussions; your hand is atrocious and the less said of my struggles with _Le Dictionnaire_, the better."

"This from the man who taught himself enough Italian to read Dante in the original?"

Javert shuddered at the memory. "That, Monsieur, was a far from voluntary undertaking." He was surprised by the loud laugh that escaped Valjean at his pronouncement.

"My apologies, Javert," he finally said, a chortle still playing beneath his words, "but when you are certain that nobody can see you, you have a very expressive face. Yes, just like that."

"You are here to see."

That silenced Valjean's hilarity. "Yes. But I do not quite count... do I?"

Javert recrossed his arms and refused to meet his searching gaze.

"I do not understand what you are referring to. We worked towards similar goals for a while; that ended earlier than you might wish, but went as well as it could, given the circumstances. We have corresponded for years, on pleasant terms I believe, and now we meet as friends. Should I act the police inspector with you, and nothing more?"

"That is not what I meant," Valjean said, his voice soft and his accusation loud, "and it is unfair of you to pretend so."

"Unfair? Of me?" Outraged, Javert turned towards him, glaring at Valjean who still reclined against the roof but whose arms too had crossed.

And had they been elsewhere, had the wind not pulled a veil of clouds over the winking eye of the moon, perhaps their fate would have taken a different turn and they would have gone down and walked separately into the night. Old friends who remained such and no more until the day the barricade fell, when death haphazardly reaped them along with all the young lives it had come to gather.

But the clouds hid the waxing moon and, in the soft light of the stars, a great many things are hidden while the most precious ones might be revealed. And between a breath and a word yet unspoken, there lay a world of memory; the sight caught Javert wholly unaware and swept him away.

It had been a similar night in Montreuil-sur-Mer, when the calendar showed them standing at that elusive border between spring and summer, when Javert had met Monsieur le Maire while finishing his shift. Because the night was rowdy and he had already broken up two fights, he offered to accompany the worthy gentleman to his home. Once there, he had been invited inside and, though his logic told him it was unwise to accept, Javert had followed.

They had shared a glass of wine, white at Javert's request, and discussed some trivialities of the day. He had almost managed to ignore how delightful the crinkles around Monsieur le Maire's eyes were in the light of the candles.

He had not been able to ignore it when the good man clasped his hand and squeezed it so firmly. From Monsieur le Maire, an expression of innocent joy at the memory of a shared triumph over the reactionary forces in the town – to Javert, a burning brand, a chain that fettered his hand and a benediction that made his spirits soar. How could he ignore what it meant to him? How was he to hide this longing?

Confusion on the adored face; a hesitant laugh, then Monsieur le Maire's hand relaxed in his grip. Not yet withdrawing, but giving him the chance to release without either of them having to notice. A chance, and Javert had failed to take it.

They had known each other little more than a year at that point. The trial in Arras was a recent thing; a fraught time where a revelation had been made and Monsieur le Maire had faced a hard choice, only to learn that he must neither suffer the consequences of his choice, nor fear that an innocent man would have to endure them in his place. After that, professional courtesy began to grow into something akin to friendship between them; arguments softened, the topics of their talks widening beyond daily matters, and they would freely seek each others company.

"Inspector." A light flush climbing up his face, Monsieur le Maire finally spoke, when it was clear that Javert wouldn't let go and pretend ignorance, "perhaps you might release me."

He could not. Javert sensed that he was wavering on the edge again, but it was not in him to let go; not when the candles glowed like gold, not when Monsieur le Maire's eyes remained so gentle, not when he still saw the shadow of love in each gesture and step.

"I cannot."

Then, Monsieur le Maire had tugged his hand away while Javert had bowed in silent apology. He had remained standing so while he'd listened to the mayor speak of their positions in the city, the need for respectability in the businessman, the secret of his past which could still cause disaster if it became known... Javert watched the well-washed floor intently while a thousand little logics were built into a fort against the yearnings of his heart.

"You do understand? I would hate for such a trifle to cause a rift between us. I would not wish to lose your regard at all."

And the Inspector had lifted his head and pulled his lips into a smile. He had agreed that it was indeed a petty thing; his promise to refrain from further impropriety was honestly meant, and his voice remained steady, his conduct professional, through the entire discussion. Though there remained some awkwardness between them for a time, Monsieur le Maire was forgiving of such little weaknesses, while the Inspector stubborn in his duties both professional and humanitarian. They continued to work well together, the matter fading over the years. When prudent warnings must be shared, they were heeded and caused no strife between them.

In the following years, they exchanged many letters. Years of worries and delights pinned down to paper and sent to the only other soul who knew all the little truths, leading to a new balance of friendship forming between them.

When Javert was transferred to Paris, he carried Valjean's letter of invitation in his pocket, and the evening had been pleasant: good conversation, frequent laughs, and the girls happy that an old friend had come visit their solitary father, even if they became bored by the old men's chosen topics of conversation.

Indeed, their friendship was built on a great many words. Through all these years, words had been their shelter and limit alike; in words, in discussions, they found themselves equal though set apart by class. With words, with logic, there was always something to distract from memories of another life; as long as they spoke or debated Javert needed to take no more care than to avoid the too-flattering candles and the dark, empty rooms where his dreams nested hidden, blotted out by the force of his will.

If Monsieur Fauchelevent had begun standing a little too close since Javert came to Paris, if some of the phrases he spoke had echoes of other meanings, they were nothing that could not be picked apart by more words, arguments, logic; the safer path, the one Javert had come to prefer.

So many words. So firm and respectable a friendship, such a dutiful monument of propriety and order. Yet, at the pinprick of a distant star, it popped like a soap bubble, leaving the tatters of an iridescent mystery behind.

"Don't look at me like that," Javert whispered, for the planes of Valjean's face were ashy grey in the night. In the light of the stars, he thought to see lines of pain carved in him; an echo, a phantom from another life, called up by Javert's half-mended heart. "Don't," he whispered again, while his hands fell down and his fingers scraped along the tiles.

For starlight was too ruthless and too graceful in equal measure; never had a phantom more beautiful appeared before him.

Valjean was still drawn in shadows, yes, he seemed filled with night. "Will you punish me for my cowardice for the rest of my life?"

"Punishment? You are a gentleman. You are a father." And I have grown afraid, Javert refrained from saying, for time was running short. "Your reputation has never mattered more!"

"A father, yes..." And finally, mercy be, Valjean closed his eyes and turned his face away. "I had no true wish to become one, at first. Did you know that, did I ever dare confess this in a letter?"

Javert could only reply with silence, heart still too wild for him to dare speak.

"I thought not; isn't it odd what makes us cowards?" Valjean seemed to search for words for a moment, before meeting Javert's gaze again; he nodded, then, and spoke. "Obligation drove me, and the feeling that I ought to... That I owed the world a repayment, for many things. Not in the least because I had led the most honest man I knew to the edge of perjury for my sake."

"I never lied," Javert said, his voice a rasp. There were no colours in this world, his mind whispered, no colours until the red of blood broke free and drowned the star-grey elegance anew.

"Not even by omission?" Valjean asked, and when he received no reply, he nodded again with grim satisfaction. "Of course I would have arranged for poor Fantine's child either way. I would have found her a good family one way or another. But that she should be mine? The thought seemed preposterous; what did I know of little girls. I recalled so little of families and knew nothing of raising a young lady. What," he pronounced slowly, and put a hand against the tiles, so close that the sleeve of his arm touched against Javert's ear, "in the world, did I know of love?"

"You have always loved! Everyone, each wretch and beggar, without discrimination." This was the truth, and Javert had known it; had comforted himself with it when his dreams took him to a different world, where the measure of love offered him had been so different in quality.

"Yes," Valjean said, "that was exactly what I told myself. I wished to love like an angel, without sin or a messy, human heart. And then I held her little hand and compassion was not enough." He bent forward, supporting himself against the roof with both hands, and it was hard to tell which of the two was trapped: Valjean, seeming chained to the wall and the Inspector; or Javert, surrounded by the strong arms, gaze bound to the man edging him in. Each held by old choices and the other's eyes alike.

"Then we gained Éponine," Valjean continued, "this wary, hungry little thing. She aroused my pity, she made me wish to do good, and I hurt her terribly thereby. A child is not – a _daughter_ is not someone to be paid with rich food and dressed in fine clothes and gifted with expensive dolls; to be treated as a hothouse plant, locked away and ignored as long as she appears to be growing well."

His breath was growing short, fear thrumming within him, but Javert could neither move nor speak; this one thing had not changed since that long-ago night in the Mairie, despite his prayers and rationalizations. He could not let go nor turn away and close his ears.

"I must admit this to you so that you understand; forgive me, but I must," Valjean said, and he bent his head like a sinner confessing, the strands of his hair moving with Javert's breath. "I feared to love them not enough, but in truth, I feared far more to love them too much. For what pain did not await me in the future, if I did? How could I dare love them when one day I was sure to lose them to the world?"

"It would hurt," Javert said. "Oh God, I wish you need never know how it burns when all you love lies dead."

"I know the taste of it; I have lost all once before. My sister, her children... the little children that I had to abandon, that I was taken from so many years ago. But not once did I stop to think how I was losing the children that I had gained by lavishing them both with dead things, while closing my heart to one! Not until she tried to run did I understand."

Javert started, and Valjean raised his head, nodded in reply to the unvoiced question.

"Yes. She tried to run away, my little Éponine; left a note that she would make her own way in the world. And Cosette screamed at me then, as she has never screamed before! She cried and raged – they would argue often, before that, you see," Valjean said, his confession spilling out of him faster and faster. "They'd argue often, and there were so many tears in that first year, for one had just lost her mother and the other had, oh God, they were happy to sell her to me. To sell their own child! How could I deal with all their pain, I, who barely knew what love was? But when Éponine ran away and Cosette said she hated me for chasing her sister away, I thought my heart would stop with horror. A girl of twelve, alone in Paris' night. I hunted for her throughout the night... I climbed back into the convent we had stayed in, I ran up and down along the riverbanks, I asked every face that I met, even an officer of the law!" A choked sound escaped him, neither sob nor laughter, and when he continued, Valjean's eyes gleamed with something more than starlight reflected.

"And in the end it was Cosette who found her, hiding in the cellar! Asleep on a stack of firewood with my purse clutched in her little hands, but safe. The relief nearly robbed me of my senses and I realized the futility of my fears. Because, Javert, that relief taught me that it mattered not a whit what the future brought, for I already loved my little girls beyond sense and reason. And the fear... if fear is the price we have to pay, then let us pay it gladly, and love all the more to keep it at bay."

Javert's head jerked back at that, impacting with some noise against the roof. "Touching story," he said, "though I fail to see its relevance." But his eyes would not meet Valjean's and his hands strained against the tiles.

"I refuse to cower in fear any longer." They stood so close now that their breaths mingled in the balmy air. "I made a mistake, long ago, and I ask for your forgiveness. I ask for another chance."

"No," Javert said, something hysterical growing in his voice, "no, you will not do this to me again! It is too late – twelve, ten years is one thing, but it's summer already –" When Valjean's only answer was to bring his hand up, to dare run a finger through the short-cropped hair, he shuddered and squeezed his eyes shut. "No. I cannot, I – _Mercy_."

"Should I leave, then?" Valjean asked. Ever so slowly, he began pushing himself away from the wall, slowly weighing back on his heels. "Should we walk down to the streets together, and pretend this is all nothing, that our letters have said all that can be said, and nothing but dry philosophy remains between us?"

"You don't understand."

"No," admitted Valjean, "it seems I never do. Either too early, or too late, and I'm sorry," his voice broke and his hands fell, "I'm so damned sorry that we keep passing by each other in the night!"

He made to turn but found a clammy grip held him back. When Valjean looked down, there was Javert's fingers tight around his own, and it was with growing joy that he searched for his gaze. The elation stuttered to a halt when it became clear that neither happiness nor any other warm emotion drove Javert. The way his lips trembled, the moon-white pallor visible even through the night, and the naked fear in every line of his body told a terrifying story.

"What is it? Have I wronged you so badly?"

A shake of his head. "Not you," Javert said. "Not you. Oh God, sweet merciful God, please..." His eyes shut, and he hissed in pain, crumpling against the wall. "Friendship I can stand, even if it hurts. But to love, Valjean? It destroys me wholly."

"Then..."

"I cannot," he admitted, "I still cannot resist it, even if it damns me forever." And he yanked Valjean closer, buried a hand in his greying locks, and kissed him with the hunger of one who has thirsted for a lifetime.

The sudden movement pulling him off-balance, Valjean fell against him. It was arms familiar with his body that caught him, it was lips that knew him well that pushed against his own, that teased and tasted and set him aflame, even as his hands floundered and his knees grew weak, until only Javert's arm around his back held him upright.

"How did –" he gasped when they separated, then decided to ignore the question, sought Javert's lips again, and they fell upon each other with a hunger too long pent up.

Javert's groan as a firm leg slipped in, pressing against his body, was echoed by Valjean's amazed exclamation. Neither could later recall whose hand had first fumbled open their buttons.

"We're on top," Valjean gasped between kisses, "ah, the Palais!"

"Not illegal," Javert said, and slipped a hand inside his trousers.

"Scandalous!"

Halting his movements for a moment, Javert brought his mouth close to Valjean's ear and whispered, "More shocking than stopping now and walking down all those steps? While any guard may see us in such a state?" The squeeze of his hand made it more than clear which state he was referring to. "And then what? We ought to walk, decorously, through the night and attempt to not reveal with a touch or a glance what madness roils inside us? I have done that for far too many nights," he confessed, his voice heated enough that Valjean shivered at it's caress, "and I can tell you, Monsieur, it is not a pleasant experience. Or perhaps we should take a carriage? And sit chastely in that closed box, not touching, not stroking, not holding you like this; why, I do believe we would need fetters and chains to manage that."

"No one will come here?" Valjean asked, but his answer was already obvious in the way he spread his legs wider and let his hands roam over Javert; in the wetness of his lips as he allowed himself to taste sweaty skin and in the deep, eager hunger of his voice.

"Nobody ever has," he promised.

Then they spoke no more and devoured each other beneath the stars.

* * *

It is a curious fact that not only are our moments of happiness the fastest to pass us by (misery always outstaying its welcome), but by trying to cling to them, we only hasten their escape.

Despite how much Javert wished to halt time so that the summer of 1831 might last forever, he found it evaporating faster with each glance at the calendar. The summer which lived in his memories as stretching through languid days, a memory which had kept his courage high during many years, now passed in a wink.

Still, the autumn rains did not cool his heart. It was joy itself to rub warmth into wind-chilled fingers when his dear fool had given away his gloves and been caught in the storm. But, when the sky darkened earlier each night and green trees and gay flowers withered, his anxiety grew.

Winter soon lay heavy upon them; tendrils of smoke rose thick from the city, ashy fingers clutching at the distant heavens with the same longing Javert held in his heart. He imagined their struggle towards the dimming light to be similar to his own attempts at pushing away worries for the future.

Paradoxically, it was when he forgot himself that time both rushed and stood still. When his mind was focused wholly on untangling the particulars of a crime, or in deciphering a complex sentence written by a madman drunk on dry philosophy, he might look up and conclude that he had lost hours without noticing the passing time. It was not merely the gymnastics of the brain that could occupy him; he might become equally fascinated by the crackling frost settling on shacks and hovels, fancying he heard the rustle of the Angel of Death as that great presence passed by doorways and beneath bridges to take the dispossessed from their last shivering night.

Where he most happily would lose himself was in the hot pleasure of Valjean's presence – the scent of his skin freshly bathed but already stained with the proof of their shared delight, the taste of his fingers, of his mouth, of secrets and raptures they might learn anew.

It could not last.

And yet... Hearing his heartbeat, brief seconds spun into an eternity and Javert was content and unafraid.

It could not last; it mattered less and less.

As the cold grip broke and naked branches swelled with buds, Javert knew this calm in growing intervals. There was such joy in each little thing. To speak of the matters that engaged them both until tired words slurred into each other and their eyes crossed, to then laugh at their own foolish antics – they were old and quarrelsome, they were young in loving another – and to fall into sleep next to his dear body, sink together into the soft mattress and dreams alike... To see every line of age and worry, adore every mark of laughter and sun, to love the man who was now, who had been, and who changed into another each morning; to love him whole and imperfect...

It ought not last, not forever.

All these brilliant shards of life; the growing girls and the aging men and the living, dying, struggling city – better to have known them and walked with them for a stretch along their road, than allow them to be defiled by the tedium of stagnation.

So while the slush ruined his good shoes and Valjean tried in increasingly ridiculous ways to make him accept the gift of a new pair, Javert worked through the winter and thought to understand what contentment meant.

It was not that he had capitulated before his fate; nor did he feel certain that he might defeat it. More than once, his fears overwhelmed him: dark memories and the danger of that great loss waiting in the near future. The calendar and the clock and the passing of the days would wear on him and his prayers would increase in duration until they surprised even Valjean; and only Javert knew that not piety but desperation drove him in these moments. On such days, the saints were only stone and the churches piles of brick, while the future loomed too large and he thought to hear the eternal whisper of the river.

But his nights held fewer terrors and he often dared think of tomorrow without recalling how it whittled another day off this world. It was confusing: comforting or frightening, he knew not, and his mind wavered between opposite poles, stumbling through a night both terrible and star-bright.

While the months rolled by, Javert felt himself doubled and doubled again. As the town had once seemed to echo of itself, the pasts and lives and moments swimming together... he who had once been so sharply cut from the law's clear cloth now wavered and frayed at the edges, a thousand little things pulling at the threads of his worn-out soul.

There was the eternal Inspector in his mind, adding up evidence... Always tallying the course of events and planning, calculating, painstakingly building his trap and preparing his greatest case: The Trial of the Barricade. His were the narrow eyes that searched each new face and tried to find the pattern, his was the idea to teach Éponine and Cosette how to beware of armed men and their blades.

Sisyphus feared. Sisyphus longed for end and still woke plagued by a thirst that would not be quenched (for his strength, for his warmth, for those gentle teasing pleasing killing hands) and lived with a hunger that could never be sated (for his thoughtful words, for his clever mind, for the challenging familiar enervating ideals) and his was the anguish and the nightmares of the Judgement that hovered near.

And there was Javert, who loved.

Perhaps, he dared think as the glorious month of May unfolded around them, perhaps all he needed to fit these awkward shards of self together was another to share his love. It was too simple a solution (Solution? What hope had he for an end to this purgatory he no longer wished to leave? To finish was farewell; to begin anew a horror beyond description) for him to believe in, and yet, as he accompanied the little family on their spring walks and listened to Valjean's laughter, as he felt the paving stones beneath his feet and heard the city pulse around him, his hope refused to die.

Two weeks before Javert expected Thénardier to accost Valjean and his family, he was received at Rue de l'Homme-Armé, where they would usually go for private meetings. Instead of greeting him with his usual good cheer, Valjean was greatly agitated, and it took time before Javert understood the particulars. As soon as he did, he too felt his good mood evaporate.

Valjean had received a threatening letter, worded in a similar way and containing the same demands as the threats that had hounded him upon first arriving at Paris. Then, he had dealt with the problem by abandoning his chosen alias of Urbain Fabre and spending a year sequestered in the convent gardens. When Valjean emerged into the world anew, it was as the widower Fauchelevent, father of two young girls. No one had recognized or bothered them again and Valjean had thought himself safe forever, especially once his public work failed to attract attention.

Neither time did the writer appear to have discovered Valjean's true identity. The envelopes were addressed to the current alias, and within, the only name used was M Madeleine and the threats about revealing his past were vague indeed. Instead, and from Valjean's point of view, far worse, the writer went after Éponine and Cosette. Unless paid a staggering sum, he threatened to reveal the origin of the girls and take back 'what was his'; the wording heavily implying that Valjean would not live to see the result.

Once the explanations were done, Javert examined the meagre evidence spread on the table before him while Valjean paced through the sitting room. Of the first set of threats he had received, only two remained; they did not mention the girls by name and so Valjean had saved them as comparison material in preparation for this exact occasion. The other notes, five in number, had been fed into the hearth.

Javert considered the information. He wished to comfort Valjean, but his friend did not seem amenable to gentle words at this moment – more than anything, he needed the strict reliability of the Inspector which he'd recall from their years in Montreuil-sur-Mer.

"I shall of course investigate this, but I feel I must ask. Do you intend to flee again?" Javert asked at last, wondering at his own lack of worry. If Valjean was to leave... but he could not fault him for wishing to protect his family. And much as it rankled, he could not even promise that the law would keep them safe; what had before been an honest vow would turn into a lie unless he caught the traitor within the system first.

Valjean's eyes were dark with anger, but his limp was heavier than usual and his skin felt clammy when Javert reached out and brushed his hand. Still, he shook his head, and seemed not the least hesitant. "I have spoken of this with the girls; they begged me to remain and I am inclined to think them right. The school needs us. Even if I left donations to cover all the costs of running it, Father Michél is too old to organize the help himself. And I," his fist hammered at the table creasing the letter further, until Javert saved the evidence with a wince. "I do not want to leave! We have found a place here, we have built our homes. Must I always run? Must I leave everything behind again, half-done and fragile? I want to stay and see the results of my labours, and see that my daughters grow up in safety." He stopped, the anger seeming to leave him; slowly Valjean sank down next to settee, hiding his eyes. "I am tired, Javert."

"You are not alone in that," Javert sighed. He moved closer, feeling the comforting press of Valjean's shoulder against his own, and took up the note to study more intently. The swoop of the letters were familiar, the choice of words and odd errors hinting at someone unused to writing in the formal tone the missive strived for. He would not swear it before a court, but the thing strongly called to mind his bill from the Thénardier's inn, even without the foul content. While not a surprise, it was good to have confirmation of his immediate suspicion.

"Will you assist me?" Valjean asked. "Or am I foolish to risk –"

"Of course I will! Whatever else, it is my duty!" Now, Javert turned wholly towards him, grabbing hold of Valjean's shoulders and forced him to meet his gaze. "And there is far more than duty between us. You are my dearest friend," he said, voice turning low and fervent, "and I wish for nothing more than to see you safe – happy! And the girls as well; I may not be an affectionate man, but I do care for Fantine's daughter in my own way. Nor do I wish to see Mademoiselle Éponine returned to the conditions of her past. I swear to you I shall do everything in my power to ensure that your lives are not disturbed. Everything!"

Then a shuddering breath left Valjean and he slid down in his seat. Hesitant, but needing to both give and find comfort, Javert laid an arm around him, pulling him closer until the grey curls rested against his chest.

"Forgive me for my doubting words," Valjean whispered. "I did not mean to slight you. I know you will set the hounds of justice upon this villain, but fear tends to make a man irrational. I don't know what..." he took Javert's hand in his and pressed it to his lips; first touching the palm, then gently blessing each finger in turn. "I am feeling old, my friend," he whispered between kisses. "Worn and frightened for all our sakes, and horrible dreams plague my nights."

Bending his head so that he might find comfort in the scent of his hair, pretending his arms were enough to protect them both, Javert could only answer: "You should not waste worry upon me."

"I do not waste anything on you," Valjean rebuked him softly, "but I fear for you in the dark. Paris is tense and waiting, and now this message of hatred from the past... It is like an omen. In my dreams, I see us fall to dark fates. My Éponine, thin and worn, old before her years, lies dead on the streets. Cosette alone and full of tears, and you, my dear, tortured by my nightmares in all manner of horrible ways. I cannot help it," he said quickly when Javert made a noise of protest, "and I know it is impossible – why, I dreamt you sinking out of sight, weighted down by my prison chains, or lying bloodied on the streets of Montreuil-sur-Mer – such cruel, improbable tricks from a worried brain. But waking, knowing these images for mirages, my heart still worries." He kissed Javert's hand again, his lips etching truth against the skin. "I would not see you harmed; not by blows nor dishonour nor any other hurt. This _I_ will swear: if it is in my power, I will keep you safe, just as you fight to guard me and mine."

He had to swallow then, once, twice; had to fight down the ache of tenderness before he could answer and still Javert's voice shook as he replied. "The years have been long and hard upon us both... But I will not let go. I will not let the past drag us down again; not ever again. I promise. I promise."

They held each other in silence after that, and the warmth between them kept the coldest fears at bay.

On the following day, Javert rose early to investigate the most pressing case of his existence.

He had already laid the foundations for it before he encountered either Thénardier or any other member of the Patron-Minette gang; three lifetimes worth of memories and eleven lonely years to consider them had given him plenty to work with. Now, he followed the leads with even greater fervour.

In the winter of Fantine's death, once he received word that 'Madeleine' had acquired Éponine, Javert had travelled to Montfermeil on vague grounds. He had asked several questions in town and done his best to reach a good rapport with the local constabulary. At that time, Javert had not found anything that allowed him to arrest the Thénardier pair, as, with the rats' sharp nose for trouble, they held off their thievery as soon as they scented police. With or without uniform, unless wrecked by consumption, he could not hide the mannerisms of law, but he had learned much of use even so.

Some months later, a missive from the local constable reached him with further news of interest: the former innkeeper was now a wanted man, and not merely for running from unpaid debts. Completely bankrupt, Thénardier had torched his public house rather than let his creditors have it and when the fire spread, it damaged several nearby properties and claimed two lives, catching an elderly couple in their sleep. Despite the sad message, Javert had felt a flicker of triumph in his heart when he read it; he could take the loathsome man now and neither Valjean nor Éponine need be involved as witnesses.

But before Javert could arrest Thénardier, he must be certain that jail would hold him. For that, he must first find his helper or benefactor. When he was finally transferred to Paris, he had begun his search for the traitor within the system with immediate zeal.

Considering it now, Javert was forced to conclude that it was probably his own investigation that had drawn the attention of the bandits to Valjean. Not because he had in any way mentioned M. Fauchelevent in connection with his work, but if someone had arranged to tail him? They would have to be blind to miss Javert's frequent meetings with the man. Further, shameful as it was to admit, if there was one time in the day when he was distracted, it was on the way to Rue Plumet.

He debated with himself over revealing this to Valjean, but could not come up with a way to word it which did not involve either too many lies or too dangerous a truth. Only silence remained, silence and prayer that he had not chosen the wrong option yet again.

The realization that they had found Valjean by following Javert had one silver lining: it had shown him where to find that sneaking rat Claquesous, whom he had long suspected to be Thénardier's secret helper. It was a relief when he saw that the man was not an officer of the law, as Javert had feared, but someone far better hidden, like a maggot buried deep inside healthy flesh.

The villain by night had a far plainer occupation in the daylight: a cleaner's assistant he was, a well-ignored and easily forgettable man who came in and helped move the heavy furniture once a week so that the ladies could reach with their mops and brooms. Here, Claquesous went by the name Le Cabuc, and that he sometimes also played snitch for the police surprised Javert not a whit.

Working after hours, Claquesous' filthy hands could easily rifle through pay-stubs in the outer office to find long-time informers, and he might study the large map where pins detailed active cases. Taller than the women, it was also his task to climb a ladder and polish the smaller chandeliers; a task which left him alone with access to scheduled working hours and planned patrols for the coming week. It was not at all inconceivable that he might also find a way to forge release papers – either that, or he had an accomplice within the office. The latter would certainly explain how a man with such meagre references and so opaque a background had found employment within the Palais in the first place.

Knowing that he was likely to find a traitor within the force, Javert had not discussed his investigations with any of the other officers. His sole assistant was an officer who, while his virtues were not over-large in other areas, could at least claim perfect innocence regarding a conspiracy within the Paris Department of Police.

The sum of it was that Javert was forced to conclude that he had been followed. It was vexing that Thénardier had noticed him digging around, but it gave him a vital clue: Someone must have known and revealed where and when Javert was likely to finish his working day. They must know which patrol route he would follow, unless crime and accident did not disrupt his schedule too badly. The thought that he might have been followed for a full day, the tail picking up at his front door, was examined and thrown away; had he been _that_ distracted, he would be long dead.

The leak was within the offices, then, and not in the jail system nor (which he had feared) so far up the chain that a discreet word would see the Patron-Minette gang released with fake papers.

When his first sweep of the offices revealed nothing, Javert posted his assistant on watch inside, having him go through a nigh endless stack of old files. He himself spent most of the following days and nights hidden among the roofs overlooking the back entrance; criminals being what they were, he doubted many would wish to walk up the front gate of the Palais de Justice.

His reward came on the third evening when a familiar worm crept in... and then out; Javert stalked Claquesous in secret, followed him all the way to the Gorbeau tenement and the old spider Thénardier himself. It was with considerable satisfaction that he delivered his report at the Prefect's desk early the next morning.

At the moment, Claquesous was still at large, although he would find no more correct information to sell to the criminal underworld. M. Gisquet, being understandably interested in tracing the complete network, had not wished for Javert to arrest him just yet, but now the trap was armed and closing around the entire Patron-Minette gang.

Javert planned to share the happy news with Valjean once he got off work, certain that his promise of justice served would be the absolute truth this time.

As if the fates wished to prick hole on his sense of accomplishment, the villains attempted to take Éponine that same afternoon.

The street was the same as before, but the timing wrong: three days early and Javert and his men further away than ever when he heard the gamines start crowing about the developing brawl. Instinct and fear alike whipped him on; without a thought for procedure or propriety, Javert raced ahead and left his men behind. Tearing through the winding streets as fast as his feet could carry him, he ran into the gawking crowd, and was sorely tempted to remove them with his stick.

"Halt!" he called out, making his voice as stern as possible while his lungs burned for air. "What is the meaning of this?"

Before him the scene calmed down, and he heard his name whispered between the gutter-snipes: Inspector Javert, who cannot be bribed, the purse-snatchers and pickpockets spat, he who never looks the other way for a share of the haul. Inspector Javert, who uses words before canes and fists, the beggars and public women admitted. Inspector Javert... all on his lonesome... all on his own, no backup in sight...

The crowd closed in around them.

Javert weighed his heavy stick in the hand, examining his surroundings; he hoped his men would arrive soon. Unless, he realized, his mad rush had lost them in the alleys, in which case they were wholly on their own.

Éponine was free, though she had an ugly scratch on her left arm. She crouched warily, hands held protectively between herself and Montparnasse, who couldn't have done a worse job of hiding his switch-blade if he'd tried. Her skirts were wide and heavy, but at least seemed loose enough that Javert thought she would be able to escape if need be. From the look of her, she hadn't lost her head to panic. He could only pray that she recalled her lessons: run, do not stop while on their turf, and if you must fight, disarm and run again.

Thénardier and the big brute called Guelemer had crowded Valjean against a rotting door, though he appeared to have used Javert's arrival to twist himself free. Of the wife and the rest of the gang there was no sight, nor of Cosette, and he hoped this was cause more for relief, than worry.

The former innkeeper recognized him. An oily smirk appeared on his face when he saw that Javert was indeed alone. "Why, Inspector," he simpered, "fancy meeting you here."

"What is the meaning of this?" Javert demanded, applying bluster to hide his lack of force. "Who dares accost this gentleman?" He stomped forward and, though his back itched at the thought of that sneaking blade, inserted himself between Éponine and Montparnasse. "Come, Mademoiselle; these streets are not safe for a lady."

"This madman dared threaten my daughter!" Valjean called. He tried to push himself free again, but the two men holding him were joined by the thief Babet, their bodies boxing him in. Valjean could not join forces with Javert, not without forcing an open fight, and they both sensed that the numbers were against them.

"Ahh, regarding the topic of daughters, Monsieur, things are not so simple as he makes out," Thénardier smirked, though the strain seeped through his voice; Valjean had not given up struggling yet. "This man stole a child from me, he kidnapped my own flesh and blood!"

"Are you mad? What nonsense is this?" Valjean protested immediately.

This was not a discussion Javert wished to have on the streets either. "I am not interested in your tales, Jondrette! You slander and you lie like the crook you are. However – justice will be done, even for one of your ilk." He gave the man a thorough look-over and smiled like a wolf. "If you have complaints about this gentleman, then please... Leave a report at the nearest police station, and we shall listen with great interest to your words."

There came a stifled giggle in the crowd, for there were plenty who knew of old 'Jondrette' and his nightly business. From the way the man's grin slipped, he too had caught on, and he did not seem amused by the threat.

A flick of the bastard's eyes, a tightening around his jaw; even before Éponine shied closer and whispered a warning, Javert knew something was up.

Trusting his instincts Javert swept his arm around the girl, shielding her with his body when he turned to face the man sneaking up behind them. A mere tool in Thénardier's hand, having given himself completely over to his greed, and only more dangerous for that: it was the robber Brujon who came at him with murder in his eyes.

"Run!" he yelled at Éponine and pushed her away just before a knife could reach her. Whatever his misgivings, they could no longer avoid an open confrontation; nor could Javert protect the girl when all his focus must go to keeping the robber at bay.

His shout was echoed by Valjean, whose own struggles seemed to renew. The crowd around them surged and Javert feared that their fight would incite the very uprising he had spent a lifetime preparing for. He fought with stick and fist, but refrained from drawing his firearm just yet; there were far too many opponents for him to try and shoot them all – and the effect of a gunshot on an agitated mob must never be underestimated.

The familiar whistle sounding from the other side of the plaza was more welcome than a choir of angels; bless the man for finally doing something right!

Withdrawing long enough to whistle a sharp reply, Javert paid for the signal with a nasty swipe at his head. But there was a uniformed officer fighting his way through the crowd, another had appeared to support Valjean, and he thought he heard the clatter of steel-shod hooves against pavement. The threatening atmosphere was dispersing along with the unsavoury elements of the crowd and Javert no longer hesitated; he attacked Brujon with all his might, driving him back until he had opportunity to draw his gun.

"Inspector Javert!" the officer on the horse called, waving at him. "Are you safe?"

"Never mind me," he yelled back, never taking his eyes off his quarry. "Grab the leader! Arrest them all!"

With things calmed down, it was the work of moments to cuff his opponent, and Javert looked around to locate Éponine. In the chaos around them, snatching the frightened girl would have been far too easy, and Javert could imagine no worse way to fail.

He need not have worried. Montparnasse lay insensible on the street, having lost a battle against a policeman's horse if the gash in his forehead was any indication. Éponine had wasted no time in liberating his knife and now held it with a trained attitude; one she had certainly not learned from Javert.

When Valjean hurried to her, she blanched and dropped her hand; the noise-level made it hard to be certain, but Javert much doubted that he she had let the switch-blade fall to the street. However, considering the events approaching, he decided to forget what he had seen.

"Inspector!" It was Dubois who rode over, his horse throwing its head as it stepped delicately around Montparnasse.

"Dubois," he acknowledged, tallying up the rest of the band. Brujon was being held by another of his men, and the third had Guelemer on the ground, was just cuffing his hands – but of Thénardier himself, there was no trace. "You certainly arrived in a timely fashion."

Perhaps Thénardier hoped to avoid them by crouching in his hiding-hole? Javert signalled with his hand, and Dubois hurried to get off his horse and follow him, throwing the reins to another officer. They walked into the miserable apartment belonging to Thénardier, but found nothing but rags and a misshapen lump of wood.

"Oof, that was a close one. I thought we'd lost you, Inspector," Dubois said once it was clear the room was empty. "Lord knows where I'd have known to look if you hadn't been here!"

Something about his statement bothered Javert. "What do you mean?"

"Ah, well..." He gave an embarrassed cough and adjusted his hat. "We tend to pass by this square, yes? And I remembered, like, how you'd get the same back home – in Montreuil, I mean."

"Yes, I follow," Javert snapped. "Out with it, we still have witnesses to hear."

"Well, we noticed after a while – me and the other men back home, you see. That when you'd look twice at a place, it's because you've got an eye for detail. But if you kept us all looking more than that," and here Dubois lowered his voice to a conspirational whisper, "something eventually turned up, no? And you'd always _know_ ahead of time. Don't fret now, Inspector, we've all kept mum!"

"Oh, for crying out..." Awkward as it was to know that some of his men thought he possessed the sight, Javert remembered how Dubois had once held far worse delusions; a blessing his mind hadn't wandered down that suspicious path again! It had been partly to keep him from such ideas that Javert painstakingly pulled Dubois along during his career, despite the dolt's continuing issues with gambling. Eventually, he realized the advantage of bringing along a man accustomed to his methods, as well as trustworthy in the matter of the Patron-Minette gang, and had suggested that Dubois too was transferred to Paris. While he'd never become a brilliant policeman, he was a diligent worker and by now a decent observer. Although, Javert realized, these very skills raised some hairy questions about what Dubois might conclude or reveal concerning Valjean, whom he might well recognize on sight.

"You have no idea what you're talking about," Javert said, marching back out into the square. "Now get on that horse, and go bring Le Cabuc in. Wait; ride past the station and bring two more men along; we can't know that the rest of them aren't lying low in his home."

"Oh? Oh!" Dubois looked around with wide eyes. "These are members of the Pa –" Javert's glare practically skewered him where he stood. "Indeed, Inspector, on the double!"

With an internal sigh, Javert waved him off.

During the time he had been inside, Cosette had appeared and he berated himself for not immediately making sure that she too was safe. Judging from the way way young Pontmercy hovered near where Valjean comforted his daughters, he had somehow been involved in spiriting her away from danger; a mark in his favour, Javert had to admit.

"Come, Monsieur," he said, straining to keep his voice professional, "this area is not safe for you. Let me escort you to safety, and –" his voice caught when Valjean glanced up, anger and fear warring within his usually gentle gaze. Inside, Javert thanked the high heavens that Dubois' silly words had reminded him about the dangers of gossip, but his voice remained distant and firm. "Then, I must ask for your statement. Trust me, these vermin will soon feel the full weight of the law!"

"Yes," Valjean agreed. "Come, Cosette, Éponine, it is time for us to leave."

Javert gave some final orders to his men, Pontmercy proved himself smitten yet again, while Cosette blushed fetchingly whenever she glanced in his direction, and Valjean fussed greatly over Éponine's shallow wound.

While the carriage clattered away, Javert's thoughts whirled. They had survived so far, but Thénardier was still at large. He'd have no further access to police information, but would he still be a danger, or would he skip town? Was there a point to the damn man escaping again and again? Or did he simply have the luck of the devil? Had Javert done it all right, had he forgotten...

"Inspector? Javert?" Valjean's touch on his knee was unexpected, and Javert came back to the present with a jolt. "We have arrived," his friend said, "if you would like to come up and join us?"

"Yes, pardon. I was lost in thought."

"Name your worries for what they are, Inspector," Cosette said. "You and Papa both try too hard to shelter us, to your own detriment, I believe. Why, imagine what could have happened today had you not taught us how to avoid a blade!"

At that, Éponine developed a sudden cough while Javert nearly bit his tongue in half. Realizing what she had let slip, Cosette grew pale, and her lips trembled when she slowly turned to face Valjean. Once he dared to follow her example, Javert thought he felt the temperature in the carriage plummet several degrees.

"A blade. How to avoid it." Valjean stated. "Taught them how to avoid a blade." He swallowed, he closed his eyes and opened his mouth to speak. Then Valjean held his breath for a moment, shook his head, and with great effort swallowed again. "Come, Éponine. I shall see to your arm and we shall give thanks for being safely delivered out of that nightmarish situation." he said. "And then... Inspector; dearest daughters of mine, _then_ we will have words."

They had words.

A short time later General Lamarque passed away. Whispers of revolution spread like wildfire; Javert had informants fair falling over each other to report about the secret societies plotting against order. He sent letters, he argued passionately for the least violent solutions, and his reward was the responsibility of organizing the police on the day of the funeral.

Of those members of the Patron-Minette gang that were still at large, no trace could be found, though the police were more ready to snap them than in any previous lifetime. Brujon had cracked under interrogations and coughed up some locations where they stashed their ill-gotten goods, so their funds would be running low. Further, Javert had been able to officially connect Jondrette and Thénardier, with further evidence on its way down from Montfermeil. The net was drawing tight and soon might close... but today, all hands were called to deal with the unrest in the city.

When Javert stumbled home, having had his fill of petty power-struggles with men who would never stand in the line of fire again, it was late enough that the calendar proclaimed the fourth of June already. One day more 'til Judgement Day and he had never been more weary.

The alleys were empty of all but criminals and policemen at this hour; the eternal stars above the only eyes gazing down at him. He ought pray, he thought, but his head was thick like clay and the words languished unsaid in the muck.

Red brick switched off to familiarly cracked plaster, the stench wafted over from the unkempt stall and a crooked window winking at him; Javert's feet led him home by feel while his mind spun empty thoughts. He found the gate, he made to open it, he bumped into the strong arm of Jean Valjean when the gate was pulled open before him.

Javert closed his eyes, repeating the sequence. It was not one he had seen before... it was not one that made sense. Greetings made sense, but he could not recall the appropriate form of address at the moment. "Monsieur?"

"You look like death warmed over," Valjean said, leading him inside by a solid grip along the elbow. "I have called your name thrice over already!"

"Pardon, Monsieur," he said, while they stumbled up the creaking stairs. "I was..." His apartment door, another obstruction in his way. His keys rattled in his hands, then were removed and the door opened as if by magic. Valjean led him inside.

This wasn't a room fit for Monsieur le Maire; too cramped, the bed unmade, the dust thick on the walls- He did not think he would wish to show it to Valjean either, because it reeked too stale of time's prison and he had not seen 24601 in many a year; he had no particular wish to now face him again.

"Why are you here?" Javert finally thought to ask.

"Shush," Valjean said, helping him with coat and shirt, "we can speak tomorrow."

"No," Javert protested, batting his hands away; a break in the pattern, a change in the tune? Always important, and always, he noticed it too late. "Why?"

Lighting a candle, Valjean pushed him down on the narrow bed and began with his boots. "Would you believe I had a dream from long ago?"

Javert stretched out, groaning with pleasure at finally laying horizontal. "What dream?" he asked, aware the words were badly slurred, not caring enough to repeat them. He managed to turn his head and looked at Valjean through half-closed eyes. "Tell."

"A vision came to me tonight," Valjean said, beginning to remove his own clothing. "It was of the day I received my parole. But it was not exactly that day – I was not there in body, you see. In my stead, you stood in chains. Before you was a jailer far more awesome than any I have ever seen, in stature and expression both; his eyes were great and dark, and though he was clearly a man, he seemed immense, a soldier greater than the mountains themselves. And he handed you your papers, only they shone like gold."

"Your time is up and your parole's begun," Javert whispered.

"Yes; those are the words he spoke. But you..." Sitting down on the bed, Valjean bent over him. It only now occurred to Javert that he seemed highly upset; the candle-light was flattering, but its flicker still revealed lines of worry. He reached out a hand, a vague thought of wiping away all worry animating him.

"You did not answer as I did."

"Yes... it means..."

"I am free," Valjean finished, and he closed his eyes as if in recollection of that long-ago day. After a moment, he shook his head and the frown on his forehead deepened. "Instead, you asked if today was your execution day."

"Judgement," Javert mumbled.

"No." His kiss was swift, but Valjean did not withdraw far once he had delivered it, and Javert let his hand curl around that dear head. "I heard it clearly, and I feared for you then."

"Did he answer?"

"That, I could not hear," Valjean admitted, brushing their lips together once again. "He replied, and his voice was loud like the rumble of stones cracking and falling; yet I could not hear him properly. A moment later the sea broke in over us all and in the manner of dreams, the entire prison was swept away in a single movement. The waves, the weight of that parole, your ominous words; it all flowed together and became a dark river swallowing us all... I awoke in my bed, then, cold with fear. It was already late, but I knew I must see you soonest. My dear," and here, Valjean's grip grew possessive and harsh, "what exactly are you doing tomorrow? They whisper of uprisings, they talk of violence in the streets – what will your role be in all this?"

He wished to answer, Javert honestly did; but his tongue was useless and his eyelids made of lead. Instead he wrapped heavy arms around Valjean's warmth, and a sleepy breath must suffice to carry his love, for he was too caught in Morpheus' thrall to speak further.

The night felt short, but their dreams were deep and peaceful, so that when they awoke in the morning, the fear of midnight seemed to have left them.

Instead, there was another urgency between them. Valjean's ministrations in the night had stripped them to their breeches; now they made quick work of the rest. While the morning sun drew eddies in the dust, they met skin to skin and mouth to mouth, and their final oaths were sworn in a language older than words. Valjean's hands found his secrets without shame, teased moans and curses from him. When it was time to repay, Javert drank him down to the root and delighted in his cries, trying to etch the sights and sounds into his soul.

They allowed themselves this languid morning, let themselves laugh over the squeaking bed which complained more loudly with every hour. It was narrow as well, fitting two men only if they did not mind elbows bumping and sweat mingling – fitting them well, if it kindled desire instead of disgust. They might enjoy it, even, if desire burned still brighter when they slid off the mattress, pulling one puny blanket along and forgetting the hard floor beneath.

Though it left them no time for breakfast, they chose to feast upon each other again rather than break bread together and, bitter as the thought was, Javert knew he'd find no sweeter last meal if such was fate's judgement. A bruised back and embarrassing splinters he found a small price to pay, made even lighter by Valjean's merriment at his grumblings.

As to the question of what Javert would do in the coming days, he dared not speak of it yet, risk upsetting fate with a careless word. But at the same time, it would be an abuse of truth to claim he would do no more than on a regular day; the coming events went beyond his usual duties in more way than one. Instead, Javert chose the other truth: he asked Valjean in plain words to not inquire further.

Valjean looked at him with worry in his eyes, but trust won out; he bent his head, finally, accepted and kept his silence, and they sealed this with a kiss behind the closed door.

Once down on the street, there was no handshake, no fake acquaintanceship played up between them; neither Javert nor Valjean inclined to such charades today. When they then parted ways, in silence, they walked with steady steps, and the farewell between them hung honest, silent, and golden like a prayer.

It was the fourth of June. In the winding alleys, children and old Inspectors alike dared dream of freedom, while Paris prepared to bleed.

* * *

"Let me attempt to find out the truth!" Javert said, feeling it almost as a physical weight when Enjolras' attention turned to him. "I was born in the abyss, but fought my way out of it. I have worn their uniforms, I have seen good men die while serving a Law ignored by those who wrote it!" He spat on the ground. "Justice is a star in the darkness, but her servants are too often fallible and more wretched than the villains they chase. I wish nothing more than to make up for the evil caused by ignorant soldiers serving ignorant masters!"

"Can we trust you?" Enjolras asked, eyeing his appearance slowly. "Pardon, Monsieur, but I must ask."

This time, Javert had foregone his labourer's disguise, and instead dressed himself as a gentleman slightly down on his luck. A second-hand brown coat of a cut similar to the one Pontmercy had last worn, a grey-chequered waistcoat, and a walking stick considerably more elegant than his police cane. To complete the outfit, there was even a silk cravat around his throat.

The clothes were, by necessity, provided by Valjean. It had pricked his pride to ask for financial assistance, but his friend had been happy to gift them to him and had even suggested commissioning an outfit from a tailor. If Javert had not drawn a firm line at one (used!) set only, he would soon have found himself with a wardrobe too large for his apartment.

"He was with us at General Lamarque's funeral," Combeferre slowly said, his voice gaining surety the more he observed Javert. "I do believe I saw him fire a gun."

"Yes," Courfeyrac agreed, "and for what it's worth, he helped me get away."

"I understand your wariness – I applaud it, in fact. Perhaps if two of us left together we could watch each other? We might even pose as father and son, and so be less likely to be stopped." Javert pretended to look around, then nodded towards Pontmercy, who was still busy fortifying the barricade. "Perhaps that young man there?"

Glancing over to his friend, Enjolras nodded thoughtfully. "You can both carry yourself as gentlemen and with your coats so similar... It will help confuse their eyes. Yes. I shall ask him."

Javert nodded and turned towards Courfeyrac to hide his appearance a little while longer; it would not do for Pontmercy to reveal him with a surprised exclamation.

After a short conversation, Enjolras called him over. He tipped his hat at the two young men while he carefully pulled out a well-folded letter, and only turned around after he held it in his hand. From the wide eyes Pontmercy made upon seeing Javert, the young man recognized him almost immediately. The flash of a white note with a red seal, however, distracted him and his surprised visage turned questioning, even eager.

Is it? he mouthed, to which Javert's only reply was an eyebrow raised in challenge.

For a full week, two lovelorn fools had been sneaking around Valjean's garden, while Éponine indulgently looked the other way and helped distract her father. Then there had been an attempted break-in, foiled only because Dubois had been put to patrol the area each evening. Javert feared the man would ask him to to lay the cards soon, or perhaps augur the outcome of Saturday's dog-fights, but needs must.

That had been the final straw; Valjean spirited his daughters away, not even giving Cosette time to scribble a message and leave at the door.

Since then, Pontmercy had appeared thrice at the police station, inquiring whether the Inspector might know of the Fauchelevent family's whereabouts? He claimed to have something important to return; upon questioning, it turned out to be a handkerchief, not even monogrammed. Even in the midst of the growing tension, most officers took a moment to laugh at the awkward young man badgering Javert – of all people! – about his lady-love.

Despite Valjean's hawk-eyes on them all, for he had not been pleased with Javert's self-defence scheme at all, Cosette had handed him a letter to pass on to Pontmercy. He couldn't understand how she always found the foolish boy, or how her attempts to reach him seemed so favoured by fate; could her mother's spirit stand guard over the girl's dreams?

Regardless of the reason, the damning missive once again escaped detection; just as the housekeeper had demanded Valjean's attention at the right moment, now the attention of Enjolras and his lieutenants were drawn away by Grantaire. He had fallen into an argument with a woman regarding the liberation of a chair, and so, only Pontmercy noticed Javert's signal.

Nevertheless, there was only so far that Javert was willing to push his luck. He promised that they would be careful and dragged Pontmercy away before any complications occurred. The boy made to protest, but fell silent at one little word: Cosette.

"Keep your mouth shut until we are two blocks away, then I'll explain," he whispered, and they passed the barricade unmolested, though Javert though he heard Gavroche make a loud exclamation just as they turned the corner.

As soon as they were out of sight, Pontmercy tore himself loose and whipped out a gun. "What are you doing?"he asked, voice shrill. "If you think I will betray my comrades, even for – How dare you!"

"I do not ask you to betray anyone," Javert said and held up the letter. It had Pontmercy's name on it, written in the elegant hand of a lady, and the youth swallowed convulsively when he saw it.

"Listen, I will tell you the truth." He drew a deep breath; this could make or break him, and Javert did not believe he had strength for many more attempts – if any at all. "I do not believe that you stand a chance. The mood of Paris tonight, the numbers, they all speak greatly against you! This rebellion is too small, and you don't have the populace with you. However! This doesn't mean that you deserve to die." He closed his eyes for a moment, the red, red blood of this young man and all his friends streaming before his eyes; a river's worth of death, so many lives bled dry before their time. "I know you do not trust me, and I wouldn't ask for that. Come, see what I see, and report it truthfully when we return. All I ask is that you allow me to speak to your leader before you reveal me. If I don't tell him I am of the police within the first dozen words we exchange, denounce me! I swear I shall admit everything."

"How can I trust you?" Pontmercy ground out between clenched teeth. "You have already deceived my comrades! And I assume I shall not receive this letter either, until your plan is finished?"

"No," Javert said, "you have waited long enough for me to deliver it." And to Pontmercy's obvious surprise, he handed over both the note and his pistol. "Please. Look at it. This is no forgery. I have deceived, yes, but I have not lied with malice. Give me but one afternoon of trust!"

Pontmercy had torn the seal at once, but now he paused, staring at Javert for a long moment with the half-opened letter in hand. "Why, Inspector?"

Javert considered. "I serve the law and the law should serve the people."

"And when it no longer does?"

"Then it is unjust. And Justice is the first, and greatest, law itself. We can rewrite the laws of men, but we can neither change nor challenge the law of heaven. I do not condone your violent methods, nor do I believe that you are right in every point... but your struggles are inspired by the dream of a fairer world, and I would not see you all die in vain. Not when you could live on and work towards it in other ways," he finished softly. Then he nodded down towards the letter. "Ought you not read that? The young lady was eager for you to receive it. Then we must go."

They walked towards the first meeting point, Javert keeping close to Pontmercy, who was wholly engrossed in Cosette's brief words. Nudging him when he seemed about to walk into a wall was easy, catching him when he almost stumbled on his feet a bit more tricky.

"Pay attention, boy!" he finally grumbled. "How much did she write you, anyway?"

"It is not the size of it," Pontmercy gasped, "but the content which stings me like a flail! Oh, Cosette, my dearest Cosette..." He sank against the wall, and sighed deeply. "I had thought her gone from me, lost forever! In the last words we exchanged before her father hid her away, she spoke with worry about England, and I saw her already on a ship journeying far beyond my reach. But she is here!" He clenched the note in his hand and gave Javert, who was impatiently tapping his cane against the pavement, an anguished look. "I had thought to die tonight, to give my life to her memory! But she lives, she is so near me! How... Now what? My friends... My Cosette... My loyalties tear me in two!"

Thank God he hadn't been returned to a time when he was so young and foolish, Javert thought; still more doubtful that he'd ever been this hopeless, even in his earliest years.

"Then help me," Javert said, choosing not to voice his more cynical thoughts. "Rather, follow me and make your own judgements! If Paris is raging, if Paris revolts, return to your friends and fight with them. If, as I suspect the case to be, only the slums and student quarters are in disarray and the national guard is ready to crush the uprising, we go back to help your friends escape! There is no need for you to die tonight. Live! Fight for your love, fight for your better world, but above all, survive to see them both tomorrow!"

"You are right!" Pontmercy cried, lifting the letter high. "For tomorrow – and for love!"

"Keep your voice down!"

They walked through the alleys towards the nearest outpost of the national guard. Twice they encountered patrols, which Javert dealt with (You brought your _police licence_ to our barricade?), and he made sure to lead them around the blocked streets. When they arrived at their goal, everything was predictably chaotic. Much to Javert's relief, the communication conflicts between the army and civilian law enforcement seemed to have grown lesser when compared to lives past.

Dubois awaited him at the agreed spot, handing over the list tallying the insurgent spots and the guardsmen.

"Who is this, Inspector?" he asked, eyeing Pontmercy carefully, and not voicing the obvious observation that he looked like very much a student.

"This young gentleman is the grandson of none less than the honourable Monsieur Gillenormand," Javert said, before Pontmercy could spill any sensitive information. He ignored the sputtering and continued. "He has been vital in allowing me to gather intelligence – if you see him tomorrow, don't shoot him."

"No, Inspector!"

"How do you know that?" Pontmercy hissed when they were alone. "I have repudiated my family! I do not lay claim to these relations!"

"Then you should change your name, boy. I've heard it is helpful if one wishes to escape one's past!" Javert replied. "But never mind that, we have more important things to do. Here, read this, while I make sure nobody is ordering a massacre."

He spent the next hour arguing, sending messages and reworking plans. There were as always a hundred little changes in each life; this barricade had been moved a block, that sergeant had been replaced by another far dumber and stubborner, and nobody ever did what he told them to do when they ought do it.

Dubois was thankfully well-trained in obeying his orders to the letter. He had the man ride back and forth during the afternoon, until his hair was darkened with sweat and his horse stood with heaving sides at the water-trough. Meanwhile, Javert argued himself hoarse with various military men and politicians, many of whom had never put their well-polished boots on the back streets of Saint Michel.

"Well?" he asked when Pontmercy returned from his excursion. He had sent the boy with Dubois to one of the latest disaster spots, where a barricade had caught on fire. The resulting explosion from fire reaching the gunpowder had near levelled the street, and he hoped it would keep the young man from any suicidal attempts. Though he was not certain how they were to hold the barricade, _if_ they were meant to hold the barricade, Javert considered it critical that nobody blew the damn thing up by mistake!

Pontmercy was pale and tense around the eyes when he returned, but spoke with more resolve than before. "I had hoped this was all an elaborate trick," he said, "but I can see it plain as day. We were too early... there is no general uprising." He had taken a seat in a calmer corner and slumped together now, staring down at the cobble-stones. "They will not join us, will they?"

"No," Javert said, and he sat down on a crate opposite Pontmercy. "No, tonight, the world will not change. Except for you and I." They sat in silence for a while, and Javert recalled another life, another student... Paris on the night of rebellion, doubts and dreams and doomed young men; how many times had he trod upon this paths, and how many more times must he do it before the entire world felt false? He forced the thought away; now was not the time to despair.

Time was sand and it ran through their fingers faster every hour. He asked, "What do you choose to do?"

Giving a bleak laugh, the youth took out his letter and unfolded the wrinkled paper. "What can I do? I shall write a farewell to my beloved, asking for her final pardon, then return to my comrades. I am not a traitor."

"What's the use of fighting, if you know you will lose?"

"What's the use of anything, when all die in the end?" he whispered. He kissed the note, and looked up, a trembling smile on his lips. "Inspector, might I trouble you for some writing material?"

"Certainly; however, I would like for you to hold off on sending a message to your young lady until we have returned."

"If you believe I can change Enjolras' mind –"

"That's not what I meant. I saw the little boy there. He is too young to properly understand what he is sacrificing himself for. Use this to send him away, and request that Mademoiselle Cosette keep him with her."

That made Pontmercy pull a wry grin. "Gavroche will curse my name for an eternity if I do that."

Javert sat silent, and in the end Pontmercy gave a resigned shrug. "But at least he will live to curse me, ah? As you suggest, Inspector."

Before they left, Javert handed Dubois a thick package, covered in waxed paper and bound and sealed twice-over. "If I have not returned in two days time, make sure that this reaches the Prefect," he said. Seeing the upset look of his subordinate, he added, "I do intend to return, Monsieur, but we can none of us know our fate."

"But, Inspector –Are you certain, like, that you need personally go back there?"

"What have I told you about trusting second-hand sources? Exactly. Now go to your post."

Dubois straightened into attention. "Inspector." Clutching the package to his chest, he performed a deep bow, holding it far longer than Javert's status demanded. "Thank you, sir, for everything you've done for me. God's grace on you tonight!"

"Just stay away from the damned dice, and you wouldn't have half the trouble you encounter," Javert muttered and touched the brim of his hat. "Take care, man, and keep a close eye on my package."

They traversed the occupied city as fast as they might, neither Javert nor Pontmercy having anything further to discuss until they reached the barricade.

Almost they were by the Café Musain, when Pontmercy asked him to stop. "Inspector," he said hesitantly, "I believe you should remain here."

Javert shook his head and marched off again. He wore no gun and had traded the cane for his usual weighted stick; was it not so likely to get him shot immediately, he would happily have donned his uniform again. "This is my responsibility," he said, "this is my battlefield tonight."

Unhappy, but sensing his determination, Pontmercy trudged after him and they came soon upon the barricade.

"What have you heard?" Combeferre yelled to them while the others made an opening.

"Things are dire," Javert said, "and we have much news... Not all of which is fit to share here." He caught Enjolras gaze and nodded towards the café.

The young leader took in their stances, then nodded, and with his two lieutenants preceded Javert into the empty building.

"Wait! Marius, tell us what you saw!" Joly, it was, tugging at his friend.

Before Javert need interfere, Pontmercy shook him off and followed with his shoulders hunched and head hanging. Whispers spread among the revolutionaries left behind, and he thought he could feel little Gavroche stare at him with eyes older than his years.

"Speak," Enjolras ordered when they had some privacy, "and do not mince your words. We are quite curious..."

"I have first a confession to make," Javert said. "I am Javert, Inspector of the Paris Police. I did not come to spy, nor to do battle, but to warn you – the city lies silent and the national guard is amassing. You will have no revolution. Your friend has witnessed it himself; if he has any sense, he copied the numbers down. If you fight, you stand no chance tonight."

Enjolras looked at him with an angel's smile, then slowly, he began to clap. "Yes," he said, "I see it now. Bravo, Inspector, a clever ruse indeed!"

"It's not a trick, Enjolras," Pontmercy said. "I – damn, I'm sorry, but I recognized him at once. I've met him before and I thought he might try to fool me at first. But the Inspector doesn't lie about this. The barricades are falling one by one, and in an hour, their armies will have reached ours." His eyes glistened with tears and he clasped the letter to his heart. "We have no chance."

"No chance, they say," Enjolras mused, and turned to Courfeyrac. "I see I owe our Gavroche an apology. When I feared we had let a spy take Marius, he warned us that it was something far worse."

Javert pursed his mouth; always, that little... "The gamin recognized me?" he asked.

"That he did," Courfeyrac said, "and we have feared for our friend a great deal today." He gave his friend a pat on the back, and smiled at him with encouragement. "I am glad to see you whole, even if your spirit seems to have taken a thrashing."

"It's not that I don't still believe in the cause," Pontmercy said, turning pleading eyes towards Enjolras. "But they are – they're so many! And we, we are so few left."

"Far worse than a traitor indeed," Combeferre agreed, "for they send us reason and hard logic instead. Crush with numbers, and you won't have to crush with might, eh?"

That was a little too much for him tonight. "I was not _sent_," Javert spat, resting his stick upon his shoulder, taking note who adopted their stance to be ready for him, and who remained relaxed. "I came here to save your fool lives!"

"Then you have wasted your time, Inspector!" Enjolras laid his hands on Pontmercy's shoulders, pulled him close until they stood brow to brow. "You say you have seen the numbers, my friend," he said, his voice neither seductive nor angry, simply filled with the perfect conviction of faith. "Clearly, they bring you despair. What did you see that you had not expected? Their armies are great? Their cannons are plentiful? Of course they are. The masters up above always hold the whips, and we must stand below, and fight as only a people can fight!"

"But they have not heard us!" Pontmercy cried, and now tears spilled down his cheeks. "Oh, Enjolras, you do not... I thought nothing of death, for life stretched before me like an empty desert! But now I have word of her, of my Cosette. And on the same day, I see all our struggles are in vain. It breaks me apart, but worse is the knowledge that nobody cares for our battle!"

"That is not true," Courfeyrac said, and he too put a hand on the sobbing young man's back. "To live in fear, to stay hidden in their bolt-holes, to weep and pray, and live to fear another day... It has nothing to do with caring for this cause. Marius, think – do you not wish to live now? Have you not found something greater in your heart than the martyr's cause? What of the nursing mothers and the working fathers? What of children tucked in at night, or all other lovers in this city? Are their fears somehow lesser than yours? We all must choose our battles, and we all must weigh the risk."

Combeferre nodded in agreement. "It is not apathy that stays their hand, it is fear! And that is why we who have chosen this path and walk it freely should fight for those who cannot."

"Come what may, the sun rises tomorrow!" Enjolras proclaimed, lifting his hands in a blessing, speaking now to them all. "But it is through our struggle and our fight that it may rise over a better world! Do you think this barricade is built from furniture and rubble alone? Marius! Inspector! You come to us, you warn of death and overwhelming force? What of it? We shall die then, but we shall die fighting and our battle will leave an echo through time. If the people have not heard our song, then let them hear the guns that tear us down, let them lament our loss and remember it when next the winds of change are blowing." He laughed, young and terrible, and Pontmercy's tears were drying forgotten on his cheeks. "There is injustice in our world, and we were born to fight it – why would that mean we were born to end it? What hubris for a man to only walk into battle when victory was guaranteed, and still call himself a warrior. For justice we have lived, for the people we shall die! And for the future that we shape with our blood and our tears and our dreams, we shall never, never give up."

Javert had watched in silence, captivated, when he heard a boyish cheer rise behind him. When he turned, he noticed that the café had filled up. They were here, so many of the young martyrs of the barricade, the women of the café and the inhabitants of the alley; little Gavroche, clapping dirty hands. They were here, and though they were afraid, they would remain.

"And if tomorrow we'll be ghosts, then let the wine flow tonight!" Grantaire said, though his laughter held a bitter edge as he pushed ahead of the others. He waved the flask in Javert's face, spilling wine on his coat, and bowed in mocking apology. "Drink with us, Inspector, for we are all dead men tonight!"

The wine stank of blood, as it had done throughout the decades, and Javert pushed it away in disgust. "You are wrong, you are boys who do not understand. If you stay here, you will not become great martyrs for a cause. The state will shoot you, and the state will bury you –"

"And we will join all the other unmourned dreamers and hopeless fools!" Grantaire took a swig of his bottle, then offered it to Enjolras who only gave him a look of deepest contempt. "We fight, we try, and we keep getting ground down into misery and muck, and yet –" His hand was oddly graceful as it drew a curve down Enjolras face, never quite daring touch his locks; and Javert thought he'd found another almost as tired as himself. "Whatever comes, whatever happens, we dream and dream and dream again... and until all our dreams are dead, no soldiers and no wine will see these fools silenced. Not 'fore the great grave has finally eaten us all."

Enjolras pushed his hand away; not unkindly, but with the marble conviction of one who is beyond the reach of all admonishments. He spoke: "Our dreams go beyond ourselves; our goals are larger than one man. We fight against a king, we fight against injustice – but in truth, we fight for humanity and all the unfilled hopes! To die is not the end, for our calls will be taken up by others; our struggle flows through time until the summit is reached and a new world is born. Fight, Marius, fight with us with a flame in your heart and lightness in your limbs. Fight," he said, and challenged Grantaire with his stance and burning eyes, "and dare dream with a honest heart."

"Or live to fight tomorrow," Combeferre said, stern and gentle, "and leave the dying to those who volunteer." He turned towards the audience and, though his voice was less captivating and his eyes shone less bright, there was no mistaking the conviction in his words. "We do not seek death for death's own sake. I shall stay, and I shall fight, for I agree with Enjolras – no death upon this barricade is wasted in this struggle. But tonight is not our only battle, and martyrdom not our sole weapon. To all who feel the ties that bind them, be they love, duty or regrets... Go, I tell you. Perhaps the Inspector might help you, perhaps you must try to escape on your own. But go, and remember us who die, and never let your dreams fall."

Grimly, Enjolras nodded, and he swept his gaze around the café, catching each watching eye, and challenging them: to live or die, but to serve the cause in each action.

Nobody spoke for several long moments. Javert heard only the thudding drum of his own heartbeat and the working of Grantaire's throat, for he was attempting to swallow the contents of his bottle in one sweep, his eyes squeezed shut against the world.

"Oh, Combeferre; how is it that in your kindness, it is you who ask too much of us?" Pontmercy finally said. "For dying is a horror... but abandoning a friend is even worse." And he clasped both Enjolras and Combeferre's hands and smiled through fresh tears. "I shall remain, and now I shall go to my end with a calmer heart."

"And so shall I!"

"Aye!"

"For France and her future!"

Around Javert, the Friends of the ABC crowded, each of them touching their leaders, each of them sharing a smile with Pontmercy. And little Gavroche was first of them all, clambering between their legs until Courfeyrac lifted him to his shoulders from where he took up a rousing song.

It hurt to see them so vibrant and shining; it hurt to recall them broken and dead. What should he do? His words could change no minds and though he had prepared for years, none of his choices could ever stop the soldiers approaching. They would not give up. It was this knowledge that had Javert almost stagger over to the wall, sink against it, with the weight of the years pulling him down.

"We still need to plan!" Enjolras finally called, clapping his hands together and demanding order. "Marius' intelligence is important – even if it is hopeless to dream of victory, we shall make our mark in their books, and for that, we must write in blood!"

"Return to your posts," another young man repeated, "they will be coming soon!" And with both honest merriment and heartfelt vows, the revolutionaries took up their arms and returned outside.

He knew not what to do, he knew not where to go, and so Javert remained by the wall, staring at nothing until all but five had left the room: Enjolras, whose clear eyes skewered him like the light of judgement; Combeferre, who kept up a whispered conversation with his leader and Grantaire, and Marius who knelt by Gavroche and looked to be begging him to deliver his letter.

"Inspector Javert," Enjolras said, "it appears none of us are in need of your help."

"No," he agreed, "it appears not."

"You have acted with some measure of honour," he continued, "but it does not diminish the fact that you were, and remain, an oppressor and our antagonist. If we release you, where would you go?"

Go? Where might he turn? Nowhere; everywhere – all directions led to the same end and beginning.

"Inspector?"

"Where? I would return," and die, "and do my duty 'til the last." Javert lifted his head with some effort, and forced a mocking smile when he saw Enjolras' hand closed around a gun. "So much for your talk of mercy, I see."

"We will not kill you without cause," Combeferre assured him. "However, we must fight with all our might... Right now, all stand brave with us. But hearts are weak, and men are but flesh." He lifted his right hand and Javert saw it tremble wildly; that, he had not expected, and he watched the man with a new respect. "When the battle comes, when they know that the tide will drown us, I expect that many will cry and beg for mercy."

"And then you will have value to us! A bargaining chip, and we might exchange your life for our friends'," Enjolras stated. "Now – will you swear cooperation and let me give you parole, or must we bind you?"

Javert shuddered at that question, recalling Valjean's blood cooling in his arms. Parole... never, never again. "No," he managed, "that, I cannot do."

"The rope, then. Gavroche?" Enjolras said, and the boy shook off Marius with obvious relief, before he hurried away.

Javert thought to fight, but weariness had overcome him. He did not understand anything, and when he recalled Valjean's portentous dream and his previous deaths at the barricade, he felt all the more paralysed. He could not change their minds; he could not save a dozen men on his own – not even Pontmercy's life would he be able to guarantee, unless he lied and betrayed and went against everything he believed in. Would he even remain Javert, if he managed to manipulate them so well that he lured Pontmercy away; all for the sake of his own precious neck? As for the rest, their blood would become a river and Javert would live a coward who did not even attempt to save one little child...

Better to remain slumped against the wall, then; better to look at the brilliance of these who still dared to hope for a happy future, and know that Valjean was safe out in the world.

"We have to hold the barricade through the first attack," Combeferre mused. "That is the first step, both to raise our courage and come closer to our goal."

"Oh..." Pontmercy looked up. "I might have an idea for that."

Enjolras gave him a curious glance before his gaze returned to Javert, as steady as the gun in his hand. "Do tell?"

"Yes. Wait, just – " he tried handing Enjolras his guns, realized it was impossible to hold three at once, and so turned to Combeferre instead and unloaded them there. Then, to everyone's great surprise, Pontmercy shrugged off his coat and began unbuttoning his waistcoat.

"If you are planning to distract them with your stunning body, we'd do better sending Enjolras," Grantaire commented. "And possibly Courfeyrac," he continued with teasing seriousness, "though the devil knows how much wine that would take."

"No, no," Pontmercy said, pulling his shirt apart to reveal a length of thin rope wound around his body. "I have a grenade in my coat pocket too," he added when they only kept staring in confusion.

"Wait," Combeferre said and touched the rope, "is this – Marius! This is prepared fuse line?"

The young man nodded proudly, and pulled out a loose end, beginning to unwind the thread. Though Grantaire, baffled, kept shaking his head, he and Combeferre helped him remove the fuse.

Gavroche returned with the rope, but seeing the three of them already busy he simply plopped down next to Enjolras and watched the spectacle.

"Where did you get this?" Enjolras asked. "I believe I can see your plan... but it is dangerous, Marius, very dangerous."

"Better a fuse than an open flame," he replied. "I took this from a fallen barricade, though I could not get at any further guns. They had an accident with the gunpowder, a grisly thing – I suppose that's why the Inspector sent me there. His man, who was supposed to keep an eye on me, thought he recognized one of the victims and while he was busy..." Marius pulled a face at the memory. "He was trying to put the corpse together, to identify it, and I liberated this. Especially since there's already been an accident tonight, I thought the idea of an explosion might scare them off?"

"Brilliant!" Gavroche crowed, applauding him.

Grantaire laughed, and Javert hoped he had only been made wicked by drink and fear. "Oh, yes, let's blow the bastards sky high and paint the entire world red!"

"No," Enjolras said immediately. "If the barricade falls, we're done for. But the threat of it... Yes, that is a clever idea. We must set up something to protect the powder, but it might just work."

"Please, Inspector," Pontmercy said when he noticed Javert's frown, "don't blame officer Dubois. He asked a soldier to look after me. Unfortunately, the man had to go empty his stomach and when we returned, I sneaked into a closet and hid this more safely."

Javert groaned, familiar irritation pulling him from his lethargy. "Of course he'd trust a weakling! This is why I keep telling him not to delegate unless he knows the man," or had spent twelve years trying to teach him good habits, not that it always helped. "I must admit, I had not expected such resourcefulness from you... nor so strong a stomach."

Pontmercy shrugged, an awkward blush spreading on his cheeks that had both Gavroche and Grantaire grinning at him. "It was in one of the moments when I thought I must live, whatever came, and for Cosette... for Cosette, I would dare everything."

"And we've all had to assist Joly and the other hacksaws when they've been trying to treat the poor," added Grantaire with a shrug. "Chop off a foot or two from some poor bastard screaming at you while the entire room stinks of gangrene and you get over queasiness pretty fast."

Pontmercy nodded. "There is that, too." Finally freed of the fuse, he had begun to dress himself again when he noticed Combeferre and Enjolras take the other rope from Gavroche. "Ah, must we really?"

"We cannot have a knife against our back," Enjolras told him, stern.

"If you will not give us your word after all?" Combeferre asked, looking hopefully at Javert.

"No," Javert said and straightened. "I will not lie, but neither can I go against my principles."

"Principles; the greatest folly of our age." Grantaire shook his head, and took another deep swallow of drink. "But there we have it, Marius! He has _principles_, so bind him we must."

"Yeah," Gavroche agreed, "ol' bastard's too sneaky to let run free."

They seated him on the floor and tied him to the stairs; not uncomfortably, but thoroughly. No noose around his neck, but he felt a clench of fear inside even so. To Javert, this night was playing out in far too familiar a way.

Their remaining hour grew short, and Pontmercy and Combeferre ran out to set up the trap while Enjolras rearranged his force, Gavroche at his heels. Grantaire muttered something about them all flying to hell before he ambled off, and with his departure, Javert was left alone.

All that remained to him was to wait, then, and hope that young Pontmercy's harebrained scheme would work. To wait – and to pray.

Silence fell around them, and Javert tasted the tension in the air. He thought to feel the tramping of marching feet on the street more than once, but the soldiers failed to appear.

The students waited too, their jokes and songs having fallen silent and the entire night appearing to wait along with them.

Then...

"Have mercy, my Lord," Javert whispered to the empty café. "Have mercy on them all."

Angry voices rang out, demanding the surrender of the students. Defiant slogans and demands for justice were lobbed back. He ought to try to stop listening. Valjean had taught him tricks to escape bonds, there was a file in his sleeve – he would not have an opportunity such as this again. Escape, somehow, perhaps he might hide and gather Pontmercy before the end, and could then hurry to Valjean's side, see him again before the river. A farewell, at least...

Javert did not move. His entire being was focused on listening to that steady marching, on the first shots thundering through the alley, on the sounds of death and the memories of young men in uniforms and cockades dying for no gain at all. He had not the strength to struggle, for more than mere ropes bound him: the years had been too long and he had staked so much on avoiding this dreadful moment that he found himself unable to act when it relentlessly appeared.

Another shot, the call to charge; he heard it then – Enjolras, the shining one, challenging them all to an end in fire and in flame.

Javert's breath hitched and he remembered: death, so much death – the guillotine, the blade, the club, the noose, the gun and the hungry river and the deep sea and the fire of the barricades, these damned barricades! Again this devouring night when men and youths and children would fall; their blood spilled on the stones until only a line of corpses remained; hungry and inescapable, this night of Judgement.

Silence; terrible – made more so by his imagination showing a lit fuse, tiny sparks whispering them all towards the sudden end.

Silence, terrible, as was the gunshot breaking in a wholly different way. Angry yelling, then an explosion sounded, but not the disaster he'd awaited – not their powder flying high in reckless destruction, but still too loud and deadly for a gun. Such distant screams they were (the soldiers, oh God, all those men dying for their duty!), the lack of fire crackling alive, the shallow depth of its thunder. He recognized it then; it was not the powder flying high, but Pontmercy's stolen grenade thrown over the barricade.

Finally, Javert heard the order loud and clear: Retreat! Retreat! They've rigged it to blow!

His head fell back against the post, cold sweat gathering at his temples and trickling down his back. Another night of life. Perhaps another chance. If only he could stop shaking...

Once more the students walked in, carrying one of their own, and he saw shadows walk along them with a different man in their grip; another lifetime but they bled with the same colour. In contrast to that time, this man did not twist in pain but hung limp in their grip. The young doctor walked at his side and clutched a slack hand; when they laid him on the floor, Javert recognized his pale face. The one they named Bossuet.

It angered him then, that the river would not rise at this proof of his failure. What were the fates, to decide one man's worth above another?

The wounded student seemed to breathe still, if shallowly. They turned him and Javert saw the wound then, the place where a large swath of scalp had been torn off, revealing blood, naked skull and perhaps things even worse. This man would never wake again.

Another student was helped inside. Feuilly, he was called, and could at least walk on his own even if his arm was bent unnaturally, with red creeping through fingers held protectively around the break.

"Joly," Courfeyrac called, tying his cravat tight above the wound, "Joly! You must take a look at this!"

Marius (unharmed and whole; how bitter the reassuring sight) pulled Joly away from the dying man, led him with gentle determination to the one who still had a chance. It was not a doctor but a grey-faced mourner who bound his friend's wound. When he returned to find the first man dead, having slipped away between two breaths, he collapsed to his knees and no words reached him.

Striding inside, Enjolras' presence was captivating enough that all others, even Javert, found their attention drawn to him.

He waited a beat, then announced in triumph: "They've withdrawn! We gave them leave to collect their dead, and in return, have received some food and drink." Enjolras rubbed his hands and gazed towards the morrow while he continued speaking. "They fear we have more explosives, too. None understand where our arsenal comes from, but that only frightens them more. With this advantage, we ought to be able to hold out an entire day! If we succeed long enough, we might even turn the general opinion around!"

"Enjolras..." Courfeyrac jerked his head towards Joly, and the elation faded from the young leader's face.

"We knew we would have to pay a high price for our dreams," was all Enjolras was willing to give, though he inclined his head in respect. Only for a moment, though, and then he stepped over to the pair, sank down on his heels, and spoke quiet words to Joly – not of comfort, but of their goal; words in equal parts uplifting and ruthless.

"At least we gave them a good scare," Feuilly managed, offering a wan smirk. "If we could only get our message out to the populace, like Enjolras said, I'm sure some would come and join us!"

"How are we to sneak through their blockade, though?" Courfeyrac asked. "Their watch is bound to be doubled now!"

He and Marius had sat down on the empty floor next to their wounded friend, leaving Enjolras and Joly in peace. The students seemed to have decided that they would collectively ignore Javert, which suited him at the moment – now that the first danger was passed, his fingers had begun working the file, carefully teasing it out of a seam.

A part of Javert wished that he had brought something to dull pain, for it was clear that despite his surface of good cheer, young Feuilly was in considerable distress. Unfortunately, a gentleman's dress hid far less than a police greatcoat, and he had not wished to risk them investigating him closely until he'd pulled Pontmercy away. Afterwards, he had dared hope that there would be no use for laudanum among these schoolboys.

The three discussed their problems, joined after some time by Enjolras and a still subdued Joly. It was when Feuilly began wistfully speaking about a secret society of teachers in Poland that Pontmercy sprang up with a shout, before running out the café, yelling for Gavroche.

"He's always so enthusiastic, isn't he?" Courfeyrac remarked and the students shared a fond smile.

When Pontmercy returned, he was dragging the struggling gamin along.

"I ain't gonna take your silly letter!" the boy protested, clearly continuing an earlier argument. "Listen, Marius, my place's here tonight!"

Pontmercy ignored him completely, and pushed the boy forward, so that he almost stumbled on top of Enjolras. "Gavroche!" he proclaimed. "Gavroche can sneak out and bring a stack of posters with him!"

"An' I suppose I'll just hafta take the way past your girl too?" Gavroche spat and gave Pontmercy an evil eye. "Think I'm stupid, do ya? I'm not lettin' ya shove me outta the way, just 'cause the Inspector gave ya a fright!"

"Absolutely out of the question!" Courfeyrac's easy manners were gone, and he seemed perturbed at the suggestion. "The last person who should risk going through that line tonight is Gavroche! Marius, don't you understand the danger?"

Enjolras nodded in stern agreement. "This is a man's job, and a man's danger. After the grenade, they will feel vengeful. To be found with revolutionary tracts in the pockets tonight... No, not Gavroche."

"Hang on." The boy frowned. "Y'mean those papers are actually important? That's a diff'rent thing."

"It's too dangerous," Courfeyrac snapped.

"And you wouldn't manage anyway," Enjolras agreed, "unless there is a secret password the Inspector feels like sharing with us."

"Um..." All eyes fell on Pontmercy, who in turn looked thoughtfully at Javert. He scratched his neck and gave an embarrassed smile before speaking. "Ehm, this is a bit silly, but I think I forgot to tell you in all the excitement before... Inspector Javert did bring his police identification."

Cosette's beau or not, Javert could cheerfully have throttled the ninny. "Don't even think it," he snarled. "They'll shoot the boy before he has a chance to identify himself – not that anybody would mistake him for a policeman!"

"No," Enjolras said slowly, rising on light feet and sauntering closer, head cocked and eyes calculating. "But the police does employ young spies from time to time. They know that you are here; if you were hurt, if you needed reinforcements... Marius, did you not mention it, the name of the Inspector's assistant?"

"Dubois," Marius offered, "and I recall another bunch of names to ask for too."

"Aha." Enjolras stroked his chin, nodding to himself. "It would still be dangerous, but so is remaining here. With the right papers, with the right excuse..."

Javert shook his head in silent disgust. This had never been his intention, and he feared for the worst if they actually went through with such a foolish plan.

"No." It was Courfeyrac speaking, and they all heard the plea in his voice. "No, Enjolras, this is madness!"

"I'd do it if ye'll ask," Gavroche said, so foolish and brave. "Just gimme the papers, and I'll get 'em out." He crossed his arms and glared at Pontmercy. "And then I'm comin' right back 'ere!"

"Enjolras!" Courfeyrac went up to his leader, sharing a few private words with him; none too friendly ones, to judge from his tone.

"But if it works, where'm I supposed to take 'em?" Gavroche continued, ignoring the argument taking place a few feet away. "I can't really run round an' hand 'em all out myself, can I?"

"Listen to me before you say no," Pontmercy said and knelt in front of him. He spoke so fast that the words almost tripped over each other, and what he had to say was this: Cosette's father was a philanthropist with connections to the church. He was known among the poor, and though he was an elderly man, everything showed him a determined and resourceful. If Gavroche spoke to Cosette, she would surely convince her father for his, Marius', sake. With the help of this man, their message would have the greatest chance of reaching the population in time.

"An' while I'm there," Gavroche said with a roll of his eyes, "I can take a lett'r to her as well, eh?" He grinned then, and gave Pontmercy a playful punch on the shoulder. "Oh fine! If Enjolras says it's a go, I'll do it!"

The discussion was not ended with that. Both Enjolras and Feuilly questioned the wisdom in trusting so much to a complete stranger and Courfeyrac had several objections to raise, which he did so loudly that more students came to ask what they were arguing about. Pontmercy defended his point, and Gavroche twice pointed out that if he was going, he'd like to get going before the night was over, if they'd please.

Meanwhile, Javert had found the file and doggedly sawed through his ropes. Whether Valjean's presence was vital for him or not, he had no intention of letting a little boy risk his life to bring that about. He rolled his wrists for a few moments, letting the blood flow back into them, and then slowly began to pull his legs under him, hoping he might sneak out before they finished arguing. If he could only get to the back alleys, he could keep away long enough to tear up his identification – it might not stop Gavroche, but at least Javert would have no part in the boy's death.

Just like the agitated young men, he had completely forgotten about Joly, sitting silent by Bossuet's corpse. When he stood up, when he on silent feet snuck backwards toward the exit, it was this youth who looked up, caught Javert's eyes for an endless moment and then yelled out his name, pointed accusingly – Javert began to run before Enjolras had finished turning his head.

He reached the alley, he rounded a corner, and though blood pounded in his ears, Javert was certain he'd make it unless they shot him in the back – and then, at least, he'd have a quick end. Another opening appeared and he recalled it as a way out, when his feet trampled on something soft. Stumbling, he heard a loud grunt beneath, and felt someone grab at his leg.

Cursing wildly, Javert fell hard against the pavement, the impact jarring both knees and skull; before he had managed to free himself, the students were upon him, holding him down while they praised the damned drunk. He snarled and fought, biting the closest hand and tried to reach his papers, thinking to tear them up and grind them to uselessness in the mud, but they were too many and their weight pressed his face into the mud; they'd caught his arms, Grantaire was complaining beneath him, and soon they brought rope and he was caught to their triumph.

At least the interfering drunkard didn't join them in merrymaking; Javert's boots had found several sensitive spots, and Grantaire crawled off and chucked up what sounded like a barrel of wine as soon as he could.

Petty satisfaction perhaps, but when they took his papers and stripped him of coat and waistcoat, unable to find the file but knowing that he'd had one, pettiness was all he had left. Javert was taken back to the café, bound more securely, and his identification was solemnly handed to Gavroche. The coat was cut apart to form an improvised bag for the tracts and, too soon, the boy disappeared in the dark.

"You won't see him again," Javert hissed Enjolras, as the rebel leader tested the bonds trapping him one last time. The noose was back and his arms tightly lashed behind his back; an hour of this, and he'd have been in hellish distress, if he wasn't already burning with anger."You've sent that child to his death, and you've dared used my name to do it!"

"Gavroche might be young, but that does not mean his convictions are lesser than ours," Enjolras replied, wholly the idealist and the butcher in that moment. "Now then, I apologize for any unnecessary suffering, but you've brought it on yourself."

"Go to hell!"

Enjolras bowed. "The world is already there, Monsieur, and that is why we strive to bring this sorry Earth closer to heaven. Have a good night." He walked away and the café was empty; not even the dead man had been left in his company.

Javert ground his teeth and fought his bonds until he'd rubbed his wrists raw. He imagined Valjean trying to sneak past the soldiers in this night – men more upset than in any previous life, sleeping with fingers on the triggers – and he renewed his struggles until he was gasping and choking against the noose.

Pontmercy came by, apologetic and useless, to offer him some water. He drank and cursed the man, felt the blood tingle in his hands and cursed him again – and when the youth's face fell in the low light, Javert was swept back to another time. When a bleeding boy had begged him to read out the last greeting from his love; he found he could not curse him further.

He closed his eyes then and forced himself to relax in his bonds, but could not escape the images. Enjolras dead, and Pontmercy broken, and Combeferre and Joly and Grantaire and all the rest of them lying in still rows, and he felt sick to his soul.

Why would they not let him save them? Were their principles so important that they counted their lives useless, so easy to waste?

But, no; in each life, Pontmercy would cry for his love and yet not go to her when he had the chance. The drunk took every opportunity to play the devil's advocate, to hold forth on the pointlessness of their struggle, and still he remained, the nihilist outshone by the dreamer. Combeferre had trembled, had known fear. A vague voice spoke to Javert from the distant past – 'you should've seen them, how they screamed and ran' – some soldier with no compassion and less sense... For they feared, and still remained, each and every one of them, remained in lifetime after lifetime, fighting until their doom.

With fear but no hesitation, prepared to die for what they considered duty. Almost like... Javert gasped out loud in the empty dark, and opened his eyes wide, seeing nothing of the world around him.

They fought for principles, as had he once long ago. He strode into death's shadow often, but never more obviously than when he had gone to play the spy in that first lifetime. And yet Javert had not feared then, had he? Back in the days when he did not know that he would wake and wake and wake again, death had only been the end; failure had been far worse to face.

For principles they fought, and for something greater far than that, as he himself had once fought for the Law – but Javert had seen it revealed hollow and false. And he had given himself over to despair when he understood how his holy Bible was written; not praising justice, not being justice, but raising up the idols of power that rested on cruel subjugation and petty rules, taking all that he knew to be true and good and turning it into mud. From that world, he had cast himself away; better to be swallowed by despair, than live in a lawless land. Now, he watched these boys... They fought wholeheartedly for their republic, but they knew it was made out of fallible men. They had such differing goals, but even when their ideals clashed against each other they could fight side by side; the frictions of their thoughts seeming to be that very thing which granted the dreams the solidity of truth. In Javert's ears, memories of debates had and discussions overheard echoed, so many differing splinters of philosophy yielded in light duels among friends... They went to their deaths, clear-eyed and aware; they died for the revolution of the people, despite knowing how easy it was for the people to turn into the mob, for freedom to become terror, and for power to corrupt in the span of two measly years. They fought, and in the night Javert heard them sing of wine and friendship, and his eyes filled with tears at the depth of their belief: Not in one immense principle, eternal and unchanging; not in a perfect ideal, distant and impossible in its perfection!

No, these schoolboys had the audacity to dream of imperfect man and his imperfect works, they struggled for change itself – not one goal, finished and done with, as the perfect Law which had once broken Javert with its illusion – but simply the hope of humanity's growth.

"Men can change," he spoke to the dusty shadows, though in truth he said it to his own foolish heart. "We can all change, and in our change is the seed of redemption."

And he recalled those he loved, in each of their aspects: Monsieur le Maire, so elegant, so high above Javert. Valjean, his friend and confidant. And the prisoner from long ago, bowed but not completely broken, a man he had so thoughtlessly dismissed; for all that Javert did not miss those years, he wished he'd learned to see the men inside the prisoners when he had the opportunity.

Cosette, the serious little girl in convent dress, the young lady flushed with first love, the child of poverty; soothing, kind Cosette who had inherited her mother's ability to find joy in the details of the world and her father's devotion to all things good. And she who was her sister now; Éponine, with her first father and mother's clever mind and her second father's good heart. She burned with hunger to taste the entire world, yet refused to crawl and beg for her chances. One who had been raised from the gutters like Javert, yet avoided the temptation of condemning all who remained.

There was the town, which could turn against him in hatred or grow homelike over the course of the years, Montreuil-sur-Mer that had broken him so many times and yet comforted him with its blue sky and the faint scent of salt when the wind lay on from the great sea. There was even the familiar reappearance of Pontmercy's silly face, and the knowledge that he, in some inexplicable way. brought joy to Cosette's life... The little girl sweeping with her red, cracked hands; at last she had found a prince, and surely her hands would prove strong enough to save him when the need arose.

A broken laugh escaped him then, for he thought of Enjolras, who led his friends straight into death and whose soul remained pure throughout each life. Finally Javert realized the hidden truth; while he might lead and they might follow, it was each man's dreams that drove him on.

"Foolish, foolish boys," he said, and tears and laughter mingled, for he had known too much death to ever raise it up to glory – but were their dreams not their own? And were they not all the more precious just for their flaws and naivety?

Perhaps he was delusional with worry, perhaps the fall had scrambled his brains, but much as he feared the coming dawn, Javert no longer feared for the students. He would, always, regret their too-short lives. But they had chosen their burdens, and that choice lessened the load even if the weight of dreams pulled them into darkness and bloody death.

As for his own choice... Valjean. The home they were discovering together. The duty that filled his days, the city of Paris struggling around him, the joy in telling Cosette of her mother, the growing response to his careful suggestions at the precinct: a myriad of treasured details that had filled his weary life with relief for these last twelve years. But beyond all else, what he missed in that moment was the swell of love at Valjean's smile, and he thought that he wanted nothing more than to be greeted by it once again.

With such thoughts for company, Javert heard the students go to their rest, and he wished he might join them for one final night beneath the stars.

He could not sleep in comfort in his bonds, but the harrowing emotions had taken their toll. When a disturbance caused Javert to blink awake, he had lost count of the hours. It was still dark outside and his limbs felt stiff and achy. He thought of the mouthful of water he'd been given earlier, and his throat felt all the more parched at the memory.

When he saw who entered the café, wearing a familiar greatcoat and carrying a police-issued lantern, all thoughts of his discomfort flew from him. Javert could not refrain from making a noise of surprise, choking it back immediately; he shivered then, at the shadow of a time before.

Valjean, for it was indeed him, hurried closer with the coat sweeping around his legs. He fell to his knees next to Javert and his hand was living and warm, a balm upon his soul.

"How are you here?" he croaked.

"How could I not be?" Valjean replied. He began to saw through the ropes, a tedious task with only his pocket-knife as a tool.

It turned out that Gavroche had not needed Javert's papers, for he was clever enough to sneak through the lines of the soldiers on his own. He had found Valjean, delivered the tracts and his message and then left – it had been a mad rush for Valjean to catch him on the stairs, once he had actually read the full content of the letter. And even then the boy might have snaked his way out of the grip, if their shouts hadn't woken the girls. They had came down, demanding an explanation, and helped Valjean restrain his little prisoner.

"I am here for Cosette's sake," Valjean said, "but also for my own." And he squeezed his shoulder, and Javert felt fear and elation grip him anew.

On the way to the barricade, he had stopped by Javert's apartment, had borrowed his hat and coat, thanking the darkness of the night that nobody noticed how poorly it fit him. Then Valjean had made his way to the police headquarters to find out which barricade he must find; Gavroche had refused to tell him, though he'd loudly offered to guide his way.

"Providence guided me," he continued with a smile, "for the first man I encountered recognized me as Monsieur Madeleine, and was eager to help me. But... he also gave me dark news."

This was the last barricade standing, Valjean said, and the national guard had them encircled. They were bringing in heavier cannons from outside of Paris and had emptied the surrounding quarters. Come noon at the latest the plan was to blow the entire block to cinders rather than let the rebels remain.

"I have not spread the message, despite promising the boy I would," Valjean confessed. "At this time, it would only mean death to any who came."

Free at least, Javert moved his arms and grimaced at the pain of blood rushing freely once again. "It doesn't matter. This rebellion, these boys, were always doomed to fail. They simply will not see it – or rather, they have other cares." He tried to rise, but his legs were all pins and needles, and Valjean caught him with a silent chuckle, pushing him to the floor again.

"Patience," he whispered, "only young Marius has noticed my arrival. And he said he would look the other way if I tried to spirit you away."

"But you won't, will you?" Javert asked, and wasn't even disappointed when Valjean shook his head. Instead, he threw discretion to the wind, and told him what to do; they were at the brink, and he would fight the hungry river with all he knew.

"There is a standing order to attempt snipers before a full attack," Javert explained. "If they have not come yet, the light is too bad... perhaps they fear to hit the barricade too. They think it is rigged to explode. Find a gun and watch the roof. You might earn their trust with a well-placed shot."

"And you will wait here?" Valjean asked.

"I cannot walk easy yet," Javert admitted, "and while they might look away from a stranger in the dark, I don't think they could miss me in their midst." He managed a smile and found Valjean's hand. "Though I admit I do not like letting you out of sight tonight."

"In that, you are not alone." Then, with barely a glance over his shoulder to make sure they were alone, Valjean caught him against the pole and kissed him deeply.

Javert tried to protest, knowing the danger that threatened, but when those familiar lips pressed close and his tongue begged entrance, he found himself burying his hands in the grey locks and they kissed and kissed until their hearts ached with the wonder of it all.

"Don't die," Javert whispered, tasting his lips again. "Oh, Lord above protect you, please don't die tonight."

Valjean's only reply was a further kiss, fire flaring up between them until he had to stumble back, looked away, and murmured, "A gun. Must find a gun." He slipped the coat off his back and walked out on half-steady steps.

Fools and dreamers, every last man at this barricade tonight. As he pulled on the familiar blue fabric, Javert had never been prouder to count himself one of them; with Valjean's kisses, with Valjean's words, hope had somehow returned to him.

He stretched away the worst of his aches, rubbed his circulation back to weary life, and dared go out the back in search of a gun; a futile attempt. Rather than risk being seen and rousing the students again, he went back inside and climbed to the second floor to avoid detection. That he might keep watch over Valjean from the window had no influence on his choice, though it was a comfort during the hours of waiting which followed. Even if he was only a shadow among shadows, Javert could recognize his gait. He saw Valjean arm himself with a musket, have words with someone (hopefully Pontmercy), then take up a post beneath an outcropping of the barricade. A sensible and strategically sound position, even if it was too close to the front-line for his comfort.

And so they waited again, waited apart for the neverending Judgement to fall upon them and finish this long night, and their silent prayers mingled beneath the sky.

At long last morning approached; the stars faded and the night folded back to a grey dawn. No red in this sunrise, as if the sun knew it could never match the blood that would soon spill upon the streets on this fine summer day.

The students stirred. Javert fought with the knowledge that they would see him unless he withdrew from the window; but to look away now, when so much hinged on one shot?

He need not have worried, for Valjean's gun thundered them all awake and his cry – "Marksman on the roof!" – made certain that all attention was aimed above. Hurrying downstairs, Javert heard several more shots ring out, and he reached the doorframe to see a student fall bleeding onto the street.

The snipers withdrew under fire. In the general hubbub, nobody seemed to question too deeply where Valjean had appeared from; they had scarce time to do it in, because the beat of marching feet and rolling cannons soon sounded through the slums.

"Get the Inspector!" Enjolras ordered, and two students hurried to obey.

They were not pleased to find Javert waiting for them, free of all bonds and dressed in his official long-coat, but the time for interrogations was short indeed. He caught Valjean's eyes, silently asked him to be cautious and patient, and then he was prodded towards the barricade by their guns. Combeferre bent down and grabbed Javert's arm, pulling him up to stand between him and Enjolras. Joly clambered up behind them and took a firm hold again. Unmoved beside them, Enjolras remained on guard; his gun raised and his eye trained on the enemy.

"Your life for an hour's respite," Combeferre told him softly, when Javert had found his footing. "That will give us time to send away all who have dependants at home."

"You have realized the futility of your plans?" Javert asked, speaking equally low. "I would try and help you all, if..."

"We shall die freely, and we shall die well!" Enjolras replied instead, still not looking his way. "But those who have children left at home, those whose obligations bind them; without dishonour, we shall send them on. In this final hour, they must withdraw, and as you offered, you might try and lead them away. The world of tomorrow shall be built on the bodies of we who are free to remain."

What could he answer, what could he do but accept?

They all looked over the barricade, towards the coming soldiers. The muzzle of Combeferre's gun rested at his temple while the red flag, held proud in the revolutionary's other hand, rustled softly in the morning breeze. Enjolras was serene, his rifle so steady and his focus so perfect that one might wonder if his spirit had left this world already, rushed ahead and become one with the avenging angels. Half a step behind them stood Joly, his grip on Javert's arm more of a warning remainder than a true restraint; a warning, like his rifle rested against the thick fabric of the police coat. Nevertheless, these were all trivial details. Today, death approached from ahead, not behind.

In a formation as sharp as on a parade field, the national guard approached the small barricade and the men waiting on it. Their colourful uniforms created a bright wall of force and Javert took note of the spear-like mass of bayonets and guns, thought of the cannons surely waiting around the corner and how heavily they outranged the pistol held as a threat against him.

The officer stepped forward and raised his sword in a showy greeting. Javert frowned at the gesture. It was familiar to him, but he could not connect it to his memories of this day; where, then, might he have seen it... What had caused this difference?

"Hear me, you rebellious little worms!" the officer called, too pompous and too rude; wholly different from past times. "You are outnumbered, you have no chance! Give up and face your punishments like men!"

No – no, it couldn't be! The wrong man; why here, why now? Why such a change?

"Wait!"

Enjolras began to answer, far too proud and ignorant of the character of the man facing him, and Javert reached for him; to warn, to interrupt, he knew not even quite what he wished to do. Either way the students would not let him voice anything; Joly restrained him as soon as he tried to interrupt, while against his face, Combeferre's gun slid down to press warningly into the flesh beneath his jawbone. Knowing failure was only seconds away, Javert tried to finish his warning before all his struggles were blown apart along with his brains. "No! I know of this man!" he protested. "He won't negot –"

The first line of soldiers fell to their knees, then flat on their stomachs, and they revealed their fellows bent behind them, bent over nasty little cannons all lit and ready.

"Down!" Javert cried and, without looking or considering even one moment more, he pushed backwards and let himself drop; heedless of the risk of bruises and cracked skulls, he threw himself away from the barricade while kicking out hard. Combeferre's grip could not hold him against the pull of the earth, the man behind stumbled at his weight, the rubble shifted – they fell.

Guns fired and the cannons roared, not heavy pounders these but evil little things that spewed deadly grapeshots instead. At first Javert knew not whether the pain in his back was from the firing or the hard landing. Then Valjean yanked him upright and he found he could still breathe, though his head spun wildly.

"No! No, Combeferre!"

"Fire! Fire all you've got!"

"Get the bastards!"

"To death!"

Looking up, Javert saw a heartrending sight; Enjolras still stood, grimly trying to fire though the side of his coat was darkening with blood. But his trusty second had been caught completely by the salvo; Combeferre's remains hung on the barricade, the grisly violence having peeled his chest almost open. His face seemed stunned by the speed of death and the gun was still clasped in his hand.

"Run!" Valjean screamed into his ear; had been screaming for some time already? With death raining all around them, he could hardly argue. Javert bent to grab Joly, whom he had half landed on, shaking the boy when his head lolled; a thin line of blood was trickling down his neck from where he had smashed into the paving stoned, but he managed to stumble along while they all ran for cover.

After only a few steps, Valjean suddenly stopped, nearly giving Javert an apoplexy as he thought for a moment a bullet had caught him; but then he turned back and cupped his hands. "Marius!" he yelled, "Marius, come away!"

The young rebel appeared not even to hear him, screaming in anger and firing his guns at a rapid pace. He was far from the only one; all around them, the students were shooting, filling the air with the stench of powder and cries of defiance. Then, the cannons roared again. Splinters and pieces of furniture flew around them while more and more men fell; all was chaos and death, and still Valjean wouldn't move! Javert coughed at the acrid smoke, memories of deaths and fires dancing so vivid in front of his eyes that he hardly knew what was real and not. Realizing finally that his friend could not follow while Pontmercy remained at the front, and that Joly was swaying where he stood, Javert squeezed Valjean's hand, closed his eyes for one timeless moment of prayer and then let go, continuing ahead on his own. He pushed Joly into the mouth of the rambling alleys – "The sewers! Make for the sewers, boy!" – and turned back to the barricade.

Whatever happened, Valjean would not die alone beneath that traitorous fire.

They near stumbled into each other when Javert ran back, for Valjean was dragging another wounded boy towards the café; he helped him at the task. This student's leg was full of shrapnel, and his life ran through their hands in the short time it took them to lift him inside.

"Marius," whispered Valjean, staring down at the corpse as if he could already see his daughter weeping over the body of her love. When he rose, turning towards the opening, Javert took hold of his hand. No, he wished to say, no, do you not _hear_ it? The shooting and the thunder and the rushing of the river that awaits us? And though his mind was all jumbled, with prayers and curses flowing into each other, with nightmares and mirages deluding him with terror, at the root of it was this one simple truth.

"Not you."

Valjean only held Javert's gaze, pleading without words, and it was this that broke him; for Valjean would not use the strength of his arms against one he loved, nor would he try to convince with words of logic. He would only look, and he would only love, and Javert thought of a world where he might stop Valjean from saving his daughter's heart... and he swallowed down his fears and inclined his head, and then they returned to give what help they could.

Outside was death, and more death piled upon it. Javert saw an overeager soldier stabbed in the throat by Grantaire, the sour drink in him having transformed into liquid fire as he fought his way up the barricade. They both saw youths shot apart, soldiers falling for a king who cared not a whit for their plight, and dreams broken and stabbed by canons and bayonets. The entire barricade shook once more, the heavy cannons punching it apart, relentless and unfeeling. Splinters large as an arm flew past them, while feathers danced incongruously on the air and the taste of iron and gunpowder made every breath a chore to draw; slowly, beneath the weight of this onslaught, the barricade of dreams was crumbling once again.

And still Valjean would not withdraw – "Marius!" – not without his daughter's heart. At least the fool boy had taken cover, was kneeling in the shadows. When Javert spotted a large spark falling from his hands, he understood why, and fear rushed through him like the torrent of the blackest river.

"RUN!" he hollered to any who might hear, "The fuse is lit! Run!"

"For freedom!" With that yell, Marius hefted a pistol and ran along the hissing fuse, ignoring both Javert and Valjean calling for him. He climbed the barricade and managed a shot before he fell to responding fire.

The fuse sizzled and burned, disappearing beneath the heap of rubble, taking the clamour of battle with it.

A signal blown, soldiers backing down, revolutionaries holding up – all waited, all feared, united in this final moment before death. A sizzle, a sputter, and... silence.

"It was a bluff!" a soldier crowed, and now the bayonets came properly into play, now all the soldiers swarmed up the barricade before their officers need even give the order. Death was no longer distant gunfire, but eyes meeting eyes before knives cut or pistols snuffed out all light in them.

Valjean took the fallen Marius, hefted him on his back and ran; much as Javert wished to follow him, his feet carried him forward instead, for he saw Courfeyrac clawing himself away from the carnage with tears and blood streaming down his face, leaving crimson trails at his right side.

Safety, he thought wistfully, safety with Valjean; but Javert still recalled a night spent speaking beneath the unlit stars and a dreamer too young to taste death.

The boy was heavy to drag, bled all over his coat and slowed him down; and the soldiers were approaching fast now, the tide of battle turned decisively in their favour.

"Inspector!" he heard in a moment between barrages, and he looked up, surprised by hearing his title in this place. It was Grantaire who had called out, no longer speaking sardonic banalities, his smile no longer mocking, but achingly sincere. Run, he mouthed – and in his distant face there was such a cold cheer, that Javert didn't think twice of hefting Courfeyrac upon his shoulder, then sprinting away, knowing that this was the river of death lapping at his feet.

If he had remained and watched, this he would have seen: Enjolras lying insensible on the barricade, gun and flag still clutched in each hand. Grantaire's hand closing around his gun, then gently, so gently, lying down above his shining friend as if they went amiably to their rest. He aimed the gun not at a soldier but down, into the secret place that was reached by no fuse. He whispered a final word to one who could not hear him, then fired into a barrel of gunpowder protected by nothing but waxed paper; Grantaire smiled and shut his eyes, and let the flames devour them together.

The explosion threw Javert flat; when he got up with ringing ears and shaking legs, Courfeyrac had passed out. He had to try twice before he got a grip which allowed him to stagger along with the boy. Instinct led him not into the café, but to an alcove in the alley near it, and there Valjean pulled him out of sight, pressed a kiss to his forehead and mouthed a blessing against his skin. Marius was in his arms, and Joly slumped against the other corner looking grey and wan.

They looked none too healthy, none of them, but they lived for now. He could not feel the canon-fire sending tremors through the street; the barricade had fallen, but for a short time the echoes of its fall would hold back the next attack. So had these lost dreamers stopped the soldiers at last; not with furniture nor stones, but with the blazing fire of broken hope.

When Valjean spoke to him, he could only shake his head, sounds distorted and hard to differentiate. His friend then grabbed the boy thrown over Javert's shoulder, gestured to his wounds and understanding came. They managed to fashion a pair of hasty tourniquets from Courfeyrac's flag, binding up the very worst of the wounds.

"Whereto?" Javert then asked. "There's nothing more we can do!" His own voice still echoed strangely in his his ears, but the need for escape was driving him on. With this officer directing the battle, after all this death, he dared not risk remaining and attempt speaking to the soldiers.

Valjean nodded and took the lead as they continued their escape. They each carried a man and pushed Joly ahead of them, for the young man seemed to have lost his senses. Quickly, they reached the reeking hatch and Javert hesitated; he had gone down into the filth once before, but he had walked deeper inside the maze of streets first and had found a proper grate to enter through. And, he realized as Valjean laboured to open the hole, it had been far simpler to wade into that filth when his life was broken and he wished nothing beyond oblivion for himself.

Somehow, it helped when Joly protested, when he moaned and tried to back away. Valjean was busy opening the way, so it fell to Javert to shake him, berate him, to push Courfeyrac's unconscious body into his arms and point back to the smoking ruins – where gunfire and screams were taking up again, the horror not yet ended, though scarce more than rubble remained of the fighting spirit now.

"Do you want us all to die?" he finally growled, and Joly shook his head; no. Though he trembled and he wept, he helped push his friends into the hole, went to his knees and crept after them, slid with a terrified cry down into the filth – until finally, there was only Javert left.

He did not look back towards the fallen barricade; would not allow himself to regret, even with the hail of death fallen upon so many. They had chosen, as had he, and Javert knew that no amount of blood would diminish the splendour of their choice.

Bloodied, battered, but alive, Inspector Javert left the barricade behind and crawled into the darkness. Towards life.

* * *

He woke to a rustle of linens and the warm pressure of a body against his back. Opening his eyes, all Javert saw was white; when he lifted his head, the white coalesced into frills with white-on-white lace details. An excessive amount of frills; he couldn't recall ever having slept on such a ruffled pillow in any of his lives.

Squeezing his eyes shut against the sight, he tried to recall how he had arrived here. Every part of his body ached, and it was not the pain of death unmade, but a wholly new set of aches – the muscles in his back, a throbbing in his left calf, his head, his hands... it was easier to find the parts which did not hurt.

He also thought he detected a faint, but distinct, scent of outhouse.

In a way, Javert found himself pleased about the frills. It was unlikely that anyone would decorate his shroud in such a way.

When he tried to move and take a look around his back protested loudly; it felt as if his spine was snapping apart, and he groaned and let himself fall back onto the pillow. God, where those roses on the cover? He was wearing an unknown nightshirt, he further realized. It was made out of a far better material than any Javert had ever owned; not too many frills, praise the Lord, and thus by process of elimination, he concluded it must belong to Valjean.

"Mhmm..." Someone's hand – that had better be Valjean's too – trailed over his back, then patted him haphazardly on the cheek.

Javert turned towards the hand, only to recoil wildly at the lingering smell of sewage clinging, if weakly, to Valjean's hand.

"Hmm?"

"You stink," he complained, and tried to roll around; a hazardous prospect, Javert realized, when he nearly fell out of the narrow bed. He dared a cautious sniff at his own hand instead. "Urgh. And so do I." He coughed; his windpipe had been badly abused by the noose, and he found himself hellishly thirsty.

Finally managing to lift his head, Javert took in the incongruous surroundings; decorated wallpaper which looked excessively cheery in the sunlight, dried flowers on the dressers and masses of, of things, spread everywhere! There stood a cluttered vanity by the opposite wall, where pearls and mysterious pots shared space with two dirty cockades and a handful of dried leaves. There was a glass of water on a low stool beside the bed, and he made to reach for it. It took more effort than it should.

Laboriously, he managed to drink, then flopped onto his back and considered the situation. For all his faults, Javert had been ready to quit his life long ago. That he was to suffer the indignities and pains of feeling a hundred years old seemed excessively unfair. He was not certain whether the fact that he had known worse pains made it more or less unfair.

Beside him lay Valjean, squashed in between Javert and the wall. He was still snoring softly. Despite the less-than-pleasant, but thankfully very weak, odour surrounding them both Javert had to bury the wild desire to gather him to his arms; to make sure he was safe and whole, or at least not worse battered than Javert himself.

"Where are we?" he asked instead. He still could not recall how he had come to these surroundings.

Valjean was also wearing a nightshirt. And a bandage around his head. It looked wrong, the dirty white of it, and before he had considered it, Javert was touching it with hesitant fingers.

"Cosette's bed," Valjean mumbled without opening his eyes. "Shush, now. I'm too old to wake up at dawn." His face was drawn, and he had bruise-like rings beneath his eyes, though he smiled when Javert offered a shoulder to rest on.

"It's at least noon," Javert pointed out. The wrapping was tight. His skin did not feel feverish, and no red was to be seen. That was... that was good.

Valjean ought not to look so tired.

"Too old to go to bed at dawn." Valjean frowned and finally opened his eyes, giving him a sleepy glare. "Had to carry you to bed too," he grumbled. "When you fell over. Don't do that."

While Javert wished to protest that he had done no such thing, he did not actually know the facts. So, he kept quiet; he could not refrain from feeling the wrapping now and then, but this did not seem to disturb Valjean, for his breath remained steady and relaxed. It might of course eventually disturb him, if Javert did not stop poking. He folded his hand on his chest instead, only occasionally scratching at his bandaged wrists, and tried to take in the warmth of the day. He knew that if he allowed himself to feel properly it, he'd be dreadfully weary; yet he found himself restless. Why? There was plenty of warmth around him; the sunlight, Valjean, the horribly lacy cover... It looked safe. It should feel safe.

His mind shied away from that 'why', and Javert decided it was better to try and recall the manner of his arrival than worry about safety.

They had laboured through the sewers for hours, that was inarguable: hard as he might try, Javert would never be able to purge that journey from his memory. Near the end, he hadn't been certain if any of them were still alive, or if they were all mucky ghosts trudging through hell. His admiration for Valjean's strength in traversing these severs on his own increased ten-fold; if it hadn't been for Joly taking his burden from him now and then, Javert would have drowned in the filth and become a further prize for the vile corpse-plunderer they had encountered. Grimacing at that memory, he again wished that he'd possessed the strength to stop the man from disturbing the dead. Unfortunately, the mere idea of an arrest had been ludicrous when they were all falling over with exhaustion; they had just managed to stop him from robbing Pontmercy's unconscious body as it was! Javert hoped the boy hadn't lost anything of worth, though at least it was unlikely he would have brought his valuables to the barricade.

More dead than alive, their sorry little group had crawled out at the banks of the Seine. Joly had thrown himself in the moderately cleaner waters, flailing and cursing as he tried to wash away the worst of the filth. Despite the boy's hysterics, Javert found the idea sound. He had dropped his ruined coat and followed, needing to get rid of the thick muck caking him. They had then helped Valjean dunk the two unconscious young men as well. They were, through some miracle, still alive – though only God could tell how long those happy circumstances would last! Courfeyrac's prospects in particular seemed bleak, his wound deep with only a scrap of fabric to keep the noxious miasmas out... what diseases they might all suffer after such a journey, Javert did not even wish to imagine.

Against him, Valjean huffed: he made an effort to relax which earned him a pleased mumble.

After that first, highly necessary cleansing, they had disagreed about where to go. Valjean wished to take the boys to the nearest hospital, to which Javert had several objections – chief among them that they could not look more like escaped rebels unless they dressed themselves in crimson flags and started to shout slogans. But he also worried about their charges; the hospital was certain to be overrun with casualties and there would be many wounded of higher priority to care for.

Finally, it was Joly who ended the discussion. He revealed that he knew of an old physician, through his studies if Javert had understood him correctly, who would assist them with the greatest discretion – as long as he was handsomely paid. Valjean acquiesced, if somewhat reluctantly.

So they dragged themselves up to the level of the street and found a carriage willing to take their wet, stinking selves on board. Upon reaching the apartment at Rue de l'Homme-Armé, the driver was even convinced to go and bring the girls down to help them.

Cosette cried out loudly at the sight of her Marius so bloodied and broken, and Éponine almost dropped the lantern when she came close enough to grasp the extent of all their injuries. It was little Gavroche who remained the steadiest, taking off on quick legs as soon as Joly had described his errand and Valjean had given him a pouch brimming with coin.

They put the two unconscious men in the main bed, and the housekeeper was roused to prepare hot water. Javert, hating the tacky feeling of filth still clinging to him, could not wait for the water and opted to scrub himself off at the public pump. Valjean and Joly were shunted out to join him... It was after this point that events began to blur together.

He recalled the doctor arriving, but could not say if it had been before or after they had all finished washing. There was the image of an old man, a foul-mouthed specimen who seemed to possess as meagre a serving of bedside manners as of common courtesy. At some point, he had been lecturing them all for not obviously seeing that young Joly was badly concussed, and why was he even on his feet? Why in the world had they thought that traipsing through the sewers was a recommended pastime at all, never mind taking wounded men into that wellspring of poisonous humours!

Javert was fairly certain that this was when he'd been delegated to fire-stoking duty, before he began sharing his opinion on the good doctor's conduct, professionalism and probable parentage. He'd filled the stove with endless amounts of firewood, raked out the ash and put on new pots while the housekeeper and Valjean prepared baths; the girls having both been taken as assistants by the doctor. When the labours of night finally wore the two older men down, Éponine had them dunked in the large tin bath, one after the other, with the self-assurance of a matron twice her age.

Further, he thought to recall Gavroche returning... And he was certain he had seen a third woman, though he could not conceive of who she might have been.

After the bath, though – he had dried off, hadn't he? Had he argued with the doctor again, or had he only wished to tell the squinty-eyed old grouch what he thought of him?

Looking at all evidence, Javert was forced to admit that he might well have passed out. If that was the case, he could only hope that Valjean, perhaps with assistance of the doctor, had stuffed him into a nightshirt and then the bed. The alternatives were... dire.

He fidgeted, and Valjean groaned softly, before grumbling at him: "Go to sleep."

Javert forced himself to lay still for another few minutes, thoughts scurrying through his mind.

So many had died tonight, but he could not yet hear the river. Why? Was this Marius Pontmercy truly important enough to grant him life, to allow him to continue? Was it something else beneath these superficial actions which had changed fate? He did not consider his actions at the barricade particularly good; certainly he had only done his duty, as in every life, though his opinion of what that duty entailed had changed considerably. Valjean lived, and he fought down a bout of nausea at the image of his friend falling ill with exhaustion after their harrowing escape. That would... No. No, if there was any justice in the world, he would not lose Valjean to such an insidious enemy.

There were still the boys to consider. Though Javert had heard the doctor confirm Joly as safe (unless you wish to traipse through any more death-traps, Monsieur, in which case I would encourage you to not wake me in the middle of the night, for I shan't be bothered to patch you up again!) no such prognosis could be made for either Pontmercy or Courfeyrac. And there were his duties to consider as well... even if Valjean had said that the other barricades had fallen, he did not know how much blood had been shed at them. And whomever had thought to allow that idiot Delestre command over such a volatile situation as the final barricade! If Javert couldn't have them raked over the coals himself, he would at least write a harsh enough report that –

"Jesus, Mary and Joseph!" He shot up from the bed, almost falling out of it in his hurry. The report! The thrice-damned _report_!

Valjean batted away the cover suddenly thrown over him, sat up, blinked sleepily. "Javert?"

"I'm a bloody fool!" he almost screamed, trying to find his clothes, only to realize that of course they were hopelessly ruined. "Where is your wardrobe?"

"What's the matter?" Valjean asked, worry creeping into his voice.

"My report! I left it –" Javert swallowed, imagining the end he had fought so hard to reach falling apart due to his own stupidity. "How long has it been?" he croaked. "How long have we been asleep?"

"My dear, I am sorry to say I have no idea," Valjean said, shuffling out of bed with a wince. He came over, fussed at Javert's bruised throat and bandaged wrists. "Are you certain that you are feeling well? I do not know if the doctor is still here, but perhaps young Joly..."

"No," he said, finally settling for taking a blanket to make himself halfway decent. "No, I am fine. But I have been an unimaginable fool! I thought – oh, it does not matter. But I must get to the precinct at once. Valjean, I swear to God, it might mean my life if I do not!"

"Well!" Though his eyebrows rose skyward and he was clearly full of curiosity, Valjean kept hold of his questions and hurried towards the door. "They will be an ill fit," he said, "but I believe I have some things you may borrow."

Javert followed.

The letter, how could he have forgotten the long letter he had penned before going to the barricades! A similar missive to the one he had written in every lifetime since he first reached Paris, driven by a nebulous instinct to leave some kind of mark, to share his thoughts before all was over... The pages were not exactly his last confession; while circumstances could push Javert to share the madness of his existence with those he trusted most, nothing in the world would ever bring him to write it down. Perversely, it might have been better if he had; such a madness could more easily be claimed on fever or fear of death.

Instead he had unburdened his heart in a different way. He had written down his opinions on the state of policing in France; everything, great and small. The conditions prisoners were kept in, the appalling levels of corruption in the force, the meaningless rules taking up more time than true injustice, the short-sightedness of certain lawmakers... in short, every unvoiced thought that was sure to anger his betters. Especially since he had included the grave mishandling of certain cases where his observations would not paint his superiors in a flattering light at all. If anyone read it, the least Javert could hope for was to be judged a presumptuous half-wit; if they read carefully enough, he was sure to be called a traitor.

"Why in the world would you do such a thing?" Valjean asked once he understood the gist of the problem. They had found some clothes and were pulling them on in Cosette's room; the rest of the apartment being filled with exhausted sleepers.

Because I see the same mistakes being made again and again, and am barred by station and customs from stopping them, Javert did not say. Because the wider my eyes are opened, the more the world around disgusts me. Because whether I reach you or not, I am stuck in an unchanging hell and if I did not confess to someone, I would surely grow even more demented than I have already become!

"I thought I would die," he muttered and tried to adjust his shirt. "It seemed as good an opportunity as any to vent my ire."

To be nearly crushed to that strong chest was unexpected; to hear the hurt he had caused in that dear voice unforgivable. Despite his hurry, Javert allowed the embrace for several seconds, touching the hand clamped around his arm, swallowing down a peculiar pain.

"Forgive me," he whispered when he could find his words again. "I did not..." Valjean only squeezed him harder, shaking his head against Javert's back.

"You did," he whispered. "Do not lie to me. You did."

"I have not wished to die since you came properly into my life," Javert admitted. "But I did not dare believe that I would survive that night." Tugging at Valjean's hands, he managed to turn in his grip, and wrapped his own arm around that strong back which he had loaded with yet another burden. There would be two further bruises on his arms now. Javert would happily carry them.

They must go.

He must hold Valjean a few more heartbeats, whisper empty comforts in his ears, swear the most heartfelt vows: never would he leave unless fate tore him struggling into the night. Never would he give up again.

Finally, he allowed himself to brush a kiss against Valjean's lips before he pulled away. "I asked for two days before it was to be delivered," he attempted. "I suppose I did dare to plan, partially at least, for this contingency."

"The next time you ask me to refrain from questioning you on some topic..." Valjean trailed off darkly. If his grip around Javert's hand was still slightly too firm, and the shadows beneath his eyes had grown darker yet, there was at least the beginning of humour returned to his voice.

Valjean wrote a note to his girls, leaving it on the kitchen table. Little Gavroche was sleeping on the kitchen bench, hardly stirring even when Valjean tucked up the blanket covering him. In the living room, Javert saw a young lady collapsed on the settee; at her side, clasping her hand, Joly was asleep in the armchair, his head heavily wrapped in bandages. Javert pointed her out to Valjean.

"Who is she?" he asked when they were on the stairs.

"Mou – Musi – ? No; I cannot seem to recall her name," Valjean admitted. "Gavroche brought her late last night. She is a close friend of the youngsters."

They took a carriage again. Javert did not even bother to argue when Valjean paid for the ride. He did however ask the driver for today's date, ignoring the queer look this earned him.

It was Friday. June the eighth. As he had feared, their trek through the sewers had taken almost an entire day, and the long night following had brought them to the next page of the calendar.

This meant that two days had gone by since the barricades fell and Inspector Javert disappeared without a trace. While they rattled towards the Palais de Justice, he alternated between praying that Dubois would take his order to mean that one more night should pass and rubbing his chafed wrists even rawer, until Valjean caught him and held him still.

They stepped out and Javert swallowed; the pavement was solid beneath his feet, the air fresh from the taste of river. Had he freed himself at last? Or was he still racing against an invisible goal, time slipping from him, the obstructions invisible until he stumbled upon them? How to know, how to trust that he would ever reach the goal?

"You may wait outside," he offered Valjean, belatedly recalling how difficult it had been for him to enter the building while it lay silent in the night.

He received only an insulted glare at the suggestion. "I think not!" Valjean adjusted his cuffs. "If your worst fears would come true, if they attempt to arrest you... I am not dead yet, Monsieur. And before you ask, my daughters are clever and have known the best route to England since the unwelcome reappearance of my old 'correspondent'."

What might one reply to such an implicit promise? Javert merely nodded, and led the way in through the gates; golden shone the spikes above their heads, black were the bars, and he pretended not to notice how Valjean's lips thinned when they passed beneath the forbidding valve.

While Javert had not considered how to enter without identification, he was quickly waved through; more than that, a runner was sent ahead as soon as he was spotted. On the way to the Prefect's office, they found themselves surrounded by several of the policemen who had been assigned to his command for the duration of the uprising. To Javert's relief, and to the benefit of Valjean's blood-pressure, the officers were friendly and did not appear about to arrest anyone; quite the opposite. They all had questions, which Javert deflected with the excuse of needing to be debriefed before he shared any tales. One man even dared to clap him on the shoulder.

It was bizarre to hear these men profess any kind of pleasure at the sight of him. More so because he suspected that their words weren't the platitudes regularly handed to a comrade who had come through a rough spot. They looked honestly pleased to greet him.

"Inspector Javert!"

He turned at the familiar gravelly voice, inclining his head in greeting. The raising of a dark eyebrow coupled with Sauveterre's rare smirk and a comment – I see we have no more crimes to solves today, hmm? – and their entourage melted away.

"Inspector Sauveterre; Monsieur Fauchelevent." Javert presented the two men to each other, trying not to recall the dire situation when last he had seen these two in one room together. That had been literal lifetimes ago, and no suspicion stained either Valjean or himself today.

"During the recent worries, I assisted Monsieur Fauchelevent's future son-in-law," he said, ignoring the choking sound coming from Valjean at those words, "and in return, he was gracious enough to extend his hospitality for the night. I was unfortunately not in shape to return here directly after the uprising."

Sauveterre nodded and made some congratulatory sounds. He then accompanied them on their way to M. Gisquiet's office, thankfully following his habit of refraining from annoying questions. If Javert hadn't been too worried to have considered it, he would have assumed Sauveterre had information he wished to share before the debriefing.

Only when they reached the second set of stairs and left the gossipy level below did Saueveterre speak again. "Your assistant came to me this morning, Inspector," he mentioned. "Quite worried for your sake, he was, your Dubois."

Javert brushed it off. "He has a tendency towards exaggerations and, though I have done my best to train him out of it, overtly rash conclusions."

"Yes, so I have noticed. However, this time his conclusions were sound; he thought it prudent for someone to vet the contents of this..." he held up a familiar package, the integrity of the waxed paper broken, as evident by the darker tears on the yellowish surface. "...before it was read by any, ah, shall we say, less understanding eyes?"

"You –!"

Sauveterre tutted slightly when Javert choked off his next words. "Inspector, pardon my presumption, but do you drink?"

Mutely, Javert shook his head; at his side, Valjean seemed to have turned into a pillar of salt for all the animation in him.

"Excellent." He snorted. "I suggest you refrain in the future as well; were your tongue to be loosened, none would escape its lashing and, judging from this, not many could bear it."

Oh God, he had mentioned the Saillard-Baptistine case, had he not? Javert tried to recall if Sauveterre had actually issued the idiotic orders in that mess, or if he had merely had the misfortune of having to carry them out.

"Here." The Inspector handed over the incriminating package. "I passed on your two pages of suggestions for clean-up after the uprising, as well as your recommendation for measures to apply against any captured rebels until an amnesty is pronounced."

Javert nodded, still not trusting his voice.

"As for the rest..." Sauveterre's smile was slightly pained. "Surely, we are not _such_ an awful bunch?"

"I intended to, that is –" Javert cleared his throat. "While I stand by my words, I wrote this brief in a state of considerable agitation and might have been more pessimistic than warranted. Truly, it has been my privilege to devote my life to the law, and serve it in the company of my fellow policemen," Javert said. "Well. Most of them," honesty forced him to add.

"That lightens my heart to hear. It would have been a sad thing indeed to make farewells on such a sour note."

His hand twitched around the package with a crackle. "Farewells? You are quitting?"

"Oh no," Sauveterre said. He stroked a hand over his dark coat, shook his head and allowed a rough chuckle to escape. "No; the uniform might change, but beneath it... I believe we are both men who would find ourselves lost without duties to perform. No, I am merely being transferred; the powers that be have decided that my work is better done elsewhere. However, I am glad that I could speak to you once more before it was effected. It has been interesting to know you." He nodded towards Valjean. "Monsieur. Inspector."

"Inspector." Javert bowed. "It has been a privilege knowing you as well; I do hope we shall hear from you in your new post, once you have settled in."

"Who knows; this world is smaller than you think and you never know who you might catch up with. I shall certainly watch your career with interest!"

"Pardon," Valjean asked, his voice oddly detached, "but I believe I did not properly catch your name, Monsieur Inspector?"

Javert glanced at him in confusion. He had the blandest smile imaginable on his face, one not even Monsieur le Maire had been forced to use often. There was, however, something in his stance that betrayed a certain readiness to carry through on the promise of jailbreak and escape he had given Javert by the carriage, and Javert found himself inching closer to Valjean, strangely unsettled.

"Sauveterre," the Inspector repeated easily enough, "I am Jean-Maurice Sauveterre; at least here and now. Ah, pardon, I should not dally. Good day, Monsieur." He touched his forelock and inclined his head at them each. Then, as if struck by a thought, he tapped the papers Javert was holding. "And, Inspector? Do not worry about these any more... You will find that they are not so heavy to carry, not when there is someone to share the burden. Now, do take care in the future and may God's grace be upon you."

He walked up the stairs, and Javert looked down at the package he had been handed back. Heavy? It was a missive encompassing several dozen pages, true, but it did not weigh all that much. Especially not now that he was certain it would not be widely read in its unexpurgated version.

"He gave you..." Valjean touched the package, then shook his head, sighing deeply. "I am too tired, my friend, and these halls play tricks upon my mind."

"No," Javert said, "please share your thoughts. For some reason, I too find myself discomfited when I should only be relieved."

Valjean did not immediately reply. Instead he lifted his head, searching the finely decorated walls surrounding them. Then he backed down a dozen steps, until they were near a silver crucifix hanging on the wall. He crossed himself, eyes closed for a brief prayer, and when next he turned to Javert, some tension seemed to have left him.

"It is an odd notion indeed, Javert; tiredness and stress do take their toll on a man my age. However, absurd as it sounds, I could not shake the image that came to my mind upon seeing the Inspector. I believed for a moment that... That he was not returning a rash letter, but..."

"But?"

"But that he handed you your yellow papers."

* * *

And with that, we are almost at the end! Epilogue forthcoming.

Please leave reviews and feedback etc. etc.


	7. We shall rest

**Epilogue**

_There followed a whole lifetime rich in smiles and sorrows alike. But of this life lived once we shall see only a few glimpses, and they read as such:_

It is not easy to have one boy, one elderly housekeeper, two old men, two young ladies (three, counting the one who comes by each day and stays many nights), and three youngsters who were once students but are now patients, all sharing one apartment. Even less so, when the apartment has only six rooms, one of which is the kitchen and one the servant's chamber.

Cosette misses her ivory bed-cover, her solitude and the morning sun on the window. It is not that she minds sharing with her sister, but the room is dark: the woods and fabrics and even the paintings on the wall. The angles all feel too sharp; no wonder their tongues also turn sharp now and then. She hardly ever has the opportunity to play the piano, though she comforts herself that she will be able to play for Marius when he grows better. If he ever does...

Éponine misses her privacy, her late nights with the diary and a single candle for company, and she despairs that she'll again have order on her desk. At least, she comforts herself, she did not have to give up her room to her father and her bed to the sick ones; having Cosette share is familiar from before and not much of a hardship. Most of the time.

Valjean misses his leisurely breakfasts, only he and his daughters to share a peaceful morning. Now, there are too many to care for that his housekeeper could manage all on her own. Especially since two of them cannot yet leave their bed, not even to be carried to their families (and oh, how often he has asked about that; not yet, replies the doctor every time) and his one daughter frets and his other daughter hints that she would not mind moving back to Rue Plumet. But he dares not let either out of sight, not with Thénardier's men still out there. Cosette will not budge from Marius' side. He misses the freedom to sit in the living room and read all night, to take long, leisurely walks and know that he will not be missed until the next morning. His duties at home used to be light. Now there are patients to care for, doctors to placate, quarrels to mediate – and even with the larger bed acquired, Javert complains if he slips into it with too-cold feet.

Gavroche misses his friends; Enjolras and Combeferre and all the others, of course, but they are dead and gone now. He's fairly certain they're barricading the heavens already. No, his main worry is for the ones still here. Marius isn't supposed to throw up so often, nor should his forehead be furnace hot. Joly was dizzy for many days and still cries more than he smiles, which is wrong in so many ways Gavroche can't even count that far. Musichetta says he ought not be left alone for long . And Courfeyrac... for Courfeyrac's sake, he has even let the old man teach him how to properly pray.

Javert supposes he ought to miss his sanity, his privacy and his peace. There is work: He has been promoted, but all in all, it remains much the same. There is this strange new home: he has asked if he should not leave, to ease the overcrowding somewhat, but Valjean's fierce glare had him silenced on that matter (though he found other things fired up, with his friend so riled). There is his ultimate fate: He does not care to think of it, though he has saved a scrap of waxed paper with a broken seal, and handles it sometimes when the worries become difficult to hold at bay.

And there is this fragile joy glowing in his chest, so warm that he cares not a whit for privacy nor peace – and if that is not proof of his madness, what else could be?

* * *

At a wedding feast, there stands a bride glowing with youth and joy, and all who toast her fall at least a little in love. At her side stands a young groom, and though his face is fresh and his posture straight, long illness has carved shadows into his face. Sorrow still lingers in his eyes, extinguished only when he meets the gaze of his bride or touches the curve of her arm – then he, too, shines, for he is young and so filled with love that all sadness must retreat.

To watch this joy is a balm for two others, who have shared the same anguish and pain, though one might argue that their allotment was even greater. The first, though he has a lovely girl at his arm and though his fingers often dance over the burgeoning swell of her stomach, often finds himself turning to another, whose absence rends a hole in the air at his side. When he speaks, sometimes, he pauses – waiting for a word, a quip, a dear and familiar laugh – and his face sinks when it fails to come.

The smile of the girl with him fades in such moments too. Sorrow comes, after all, in as many shapes and colours as the grandness of love. They have both known and loved and mourned the same ill-fated man, and as the years will pass, they will remember him fondly together.

The other young man has a hand stained with ink; he has been writing recently. Further stains on the cuff of his sleeve reveal that this is a common occurrence. He seems thoughtful; speaks rarely, though his words are captivating once he does. His is also a face marked by long illness, and of a great loss nigh unbearable, though his rare smile hints that not even this has crushed his dreams. On his shirts, one sleeve remains always stained with ink, for he has begun to write down a great many things. His other sleeve dangles loose and empty unless he keeps it pinned up.

There is a young boy too, though he is not at the wedding feast today; he was washed, had his hair cut and combed, and was then put into new clothes. And he came to the church and he kissed the young bride and he shook the hand of the groom as an equal – for two men who have been through battle ought not be anything else to each other, whatever their ages might suggest.

But now he is running through the alleys, his new trousers getting spattered and torn, and he is happy. For though they will scold, and though they will force him to mend each hole himself, nobody shall ever cast him out, nor shall they make him less than he is meant to be.

* * *

He has tried to avoid the spot, but one night, duty leads him to the Pont au Change. There are criminals to apprehend; still Javert finds his steps slowing, while his hands linger on the stonework.

He gazes down into the depths, finally coming to a complete stop at the middle of the bridge. The Seine runs black, its depths as unfathomable as his future.

If he fears in this night, it is not his end – whatever shape that might take. It is not the dark silence of the grave, for though his life is often full of joy and his dreams only rarely full of terror, he still feels the age of decades weigh upon him. Some mornings he wakes with such a weight on his body that he fears he might shatter beneath the pressure before he has made it out of bed.

It is the mornings that he fears most; they have no lavender in the house and, though Valjean once asked if he wished to visit Montreuil again, he wishes never more to sleep near the salt-scented sea.

It will always be the mornings that he fears the most; it is always in the mornings that his losses are made achingly clear.

He looks into the depths of the river. He utters a short prayer, and when he opens his eyes again, he notices that the stars reflect on the dark surface.

It must be enough – there is nothing more to hold on to – and with that thought, he returns to his duty.

(He will still continue to avoid that bridge, that point, for the rest of his days; he will return there many a night.)

* * *

There is a man named Thénardier, though one will be forgiven for mistaking him for a devil in the dark. He has a wife carved from the same rock as he. Hard as flint are both their hearts, though not harder than that they can find pleasure in each other and entertainment in the misery of others. In many lifetimes, this pair have caused misfortune and always they escape unscathed from their deeds – though one might argue that possessing a heart so small and closed to all charity and grace is punishment enough, though its owner might well be blind before this truth.

In this life, when this man and his wife attempt to blackmail a young baron at his wedding feast, they are taught a new lesson: That the secrets in the baron's family are few, and the bonds of loyalty strong and tangled around many hearts.

They also learn that there are several policemen – otherwise so rare a sight among the revels of the bourgeois! – invited to the party, and that they were all too well-trained to leave their handcuffs at home.

The girl they once sold away looks at them with sad eyes when they are taken to the jail. But, though she recalls a warm lap and a funny, teasing song; though she has not denied the mother who used to spoil her (before she grew too old to be a puppet, before the money spent on her began to chafe) she also knows that the world can only offer chances and each soul must walk the road towards salvation on its own.

And, though it pains her heart, and she will write to them and keep them in her prayers, she does not speak up, nor does she seek their gaze. For Éponine knows too well that this pair have rejected all gentleness and every aspect of God, slaving only beneath the yoke of their greed.

* * *

He follows the suspect down the alleys, boots heavy on the paving stones. When Javert reaches the open square, heart beating wildly and lungs working hard, there is no sight of the man. Next to him Dubois and Lemarche crowd in, gasping for breath.

Their plan had been to surround the suspect and block all the little alleys. The younger men have run a longer stretch than he and they are all winded. Unfortunately, the more Javert searches, the more seems as if all that effort was wasted.

"Where to?" Dubois asks, looking at the alleys winding into the night. "Right, left, around the corner? Just say the word!" He winks at the Inspector, then, despite his winded breath flexes his knees and grins; here stands another who has learned to enjoy the lawful hunt.

"I do not –" Javert coughs, then realizes he is about to laugh and must make himself cough more to hide the queerness of his actions. "I don't know! I have absolutely no idea."

And he laughs anyway, and has never been more happy to be lost.

* * *

One daughter married away a year ago, now the other plans to travel. Jean Valjean thinks he ought to feel more sad, but the first daughter lives only a few streets away, visits often, and the second – oh, he has never seen his Éponine more happy! To begrudge her this seems ogre-like and cold, and so he wishes only that her journey is full of joy.

She will travel, as she has always dreamed, and she will learn so much. Towards Genève at first; there she has a friend from the convent waiting. The friend, made so many years ago, was kept through correspondence, with letters penned about books and music and, he suspects, troublesome old fathers. The girls, accompanied by an older brother, then plan to continue on to grand Rome, from there, through Paris, to their final goal of England. For years, Éponine has been interested in England and all the news that come from there. In her coffer she carries fine dresses of silk and lace, in her notebook and her mind she has all he knows about the trade of jet and beading; the money Valjean shared evenly, and the secrets of his trade he gave to the one most interested in numbers and materials. Now he only hopes she finds London as vibrant and welcoming as she has long dreamt it to be.

He suspects that he will worry more when she is underway; sweet Jesus knows that he worries already, whenever the newspaper mentions travellers distraught or robberies committed and dangerous political items which he does not wholly understand, for reading is still a labour and the world is too large for him to know perfectly... Where might a daughter be safe? How many ways are there for danger to swallow her before the father can arrive in time, to spirit a girl away and gift her with a better life?

Perhaps he ought to feel more heavy of heart already... but the apartment at Rue Plumet is sold, for there childhood lived and he knows his tendency to linger in memories. Better, then, to let it go, and leave his sorrows in those old rooms; to try, at least, to let each regret be carried away from him together with the furniture they sold.

Nowadays, it is the apartment on Rue de l'Homme-Armé that is full of life. There is Courfeyrac, their sombre lodger, with whom Valjean has spent many an evening in earnest debate. There is Gavroche; who for months seemed to contain all the joy and spirit of the remaining Friends, who was the source of their only smiles. He acts now as both young brother and son to Courfeyrac, and has taken to calling Valjean grand-père. It is an appellation that strangely makes him feel younger, when it should only remind him of his age.

Often they have visitors: Cosette and her Marius, of course, always welcome, always too soon to leave, even when they come for dinner at least once a week. Almost as common a sight are Joly, Musichetta and their little daughter. He delights in them, though on occasion he is also delighted that his daughters came to him at an older age.

Father Michél stops by now and then, his protégée there to support him. They have an energetic young priest at St. Jacques du Haut Pas now, with many ideas for the school. Only about half of them are possible to adopt, and that only once someone had created a budget and a time-plan, but his enthusiasm is encouraging.

They even have policemen at the door...

The first evening Valjean woke to their boots thumping up the stairs and heavy fists pounding at the door, he thought only of flight. He had roused Éponine and grabbed Gavroche; was halfway out through the kitchen entrance already when the actual quarry opened the front door and angrily demanded an explanation for being disturbed. The young officers fell over themselves to make apologies for spoiling the free evening of the Commandant, before launching into a long and complicated tale of woe – consisting mostly of conflicting jurisdictions and internal competition, if Valjean understood correctly.

These days, he usually rolls over and goes back to sleep. If the night is especially cold and the poor officers sound extra distressed, he might get up and prepare them a cup of tea.

(If the Commandant is particularly tired, he has on occasion shoved them out the door; he is still the first to startle awake at the sound of their steps, but no longer hesitates to reveal his strength.)

There is of course one more sharing his apartment. And, as much as he might love Gavroche, as happy as he is to see Courfeyrac learn to navigate the world in his new circumstances, as delightful as the thought of letters from Éponine are... This apartment would not feel peaceful, would not be right, without him in it. This new life – not father, not mayor, not repentant sinner nor hidden thief – would be so cold and stretch so lonely ahead of him that he barely dares imagine it. Would he cling, like a jealous miser, to his children? Would he let one go, but demand the other remain, and possibly earn the resentment of both? He does not know, he does not wish to imagine; and, if nightmares whisper of Jean Valjean's declining years being too empty and too grey, there is usually one nearby whose arms are protective and whose breath brings peace. If he is he not there at the waking, he will come home soon, and he will see the fear and recognize it well; his nights are not altogether peaceful either. Together, they chase the shadows away.

Together, they have a home.

* * *

In 1841, a book is published. It is some three-hundred pages thick and contains a critique of the legal system and execution of justice in France at the time.

Those who read it – and they are few, for it is quite dry, despite the occasional sharp sarcasms sprinkled on the pages – find the critique too harsh and the complaints overly detailed. Who cares _that_ much about convicts' shoes or policemen's uniforms?

"We revised it so many times!" Javert complains after he has struggled through yet another negative review, glasses stuck fast upon his nose. "Make it proper, you said! Let them swallow the lesson with honey and not vinegar!" He sits at the kitchen table, as is their habit on early mornings, and when he thumps the table an empty coffee cup dances precariously near the edge.

"I believe that last piece advice was from Cosette." Valjean saves the cup, then takes the moment to fill it up. He bends over Javert's shoulder on his way back and glances through the review. "Hmm..."

He re-reads the lines praising, if faintly, the 'hints of subtle wit and rare moments of actual passion revealed, often appearing when this otherwise dull and boorish text pricks our conscience with an example hinting at the dark reality surrounding many aspects of our law'. After a moment of consideration, Valjean asks, with feigned nonchalance: "I don't suppose you have kept the original manuscript?"

"Of course I did," Javert says, already working his way down the next page of the newspaper, fingers near stabbing the lines of text. "You have no idea how long it took to write the blasted thing!"

Following his habit, Javert has been keeping up a low commentary while reading the news; most of his words are scathing, but, to Valjean's ears, also frightfully dear. He knows, too, from the reactions of several of their guests that even ears less tenderly tuned can enjoy Javert's uncensored opinion on the politics of the day... once they get over the shock.

He takes his seat again, wincing at the pull in his back, and then allows himself a moment to mull his idea over before he voices the suggestion. The coffee is good, bringing some clarity to his old mind and warming his cold limbs. He recalls again a spirited discussion between himself and Javert. They had forgotten their guests for a moment, and caused one poor woman to blush scarlet, before breaking into helpless laughter at their rather forthright tone; that had been the first and last time Marius invited business associates to dinner at his father-in-law's.

His decision is made and he clears his throat. "Perhaps we should consider an unabridged edition after all," he suggests. "I might even have one or two things to add myself... Though first, I shall have to write and ask Éponine's help."

"Oh?" Javert looks up, pulling up the glasses to his forehead where they perch unsteadily, and Valjean makes ready to save them once again. "In what particular way? She was the only one who did not feel we should edit down the manuscript so heavily before having it printed."

"Exactly," Valjean said, "but I was thinking more of this book she described to me recently. 'A Modest Proposal', I believe it was called. She wrote to me that it caused quite a fracas at its appearance on the British shelves. There were a few stylistic choices there which I believe might appeal to you..."

* * *

"Would you help me outside, my boy? The wind sounds pleasant tonight."

Gavroche takes the old man's arm and pulls him carefully from the chair. The wind is nice tonight, mild and carrying the scent of meadows and grass along. It has rained, so the air is fresh, though the summer warmth still lingers. It might rain again, but probably not until the morning.

"There we go," Gavroche says when they have reached the bench outside and a blanket is tucked around frail legs. "Good, yes?"

"Mhm," the old man nods, turning his head upwards. "It is good indeed... I had forgotten how bright the stars were. How beautiful they make the night." The voice, once so stern and decisive, has grown weaker with age; but it was softened by many other things before.

Gavroche glances up too; but no, the sky is still mostly overcast. Only the full moon shines through the veil of clouds. Not, he knows, that this matters. The old eyes gazing up to the stars have a veil drawn against the light and it has grown impenetrable in this last year.

"Are you feeling well, Inspector?" he tries, the title an old joke between them. "There are no stars out tonight."

"No, my boy," the old man says and the stern lines in his face gentle when he smiles. "Don't ever say that! The stars are always there, you see, keeping watch in the night. It is only us foolish mortals, who lose sight of them from time to time, who think ourselves lost in the lightless void..."

He sighs and his head falls back. "You should follow their light," he whispers, "though never make the mistake of trying to follow their path. It is a road too cold and lonely for the likes of us. We burn out too quickly in their night."

While he speaks, his voice is fading and Gavroche reaches slowly for his hand. He thinks that Marius would want to be here, and Cosette too, but he dares not go back to the cottage to wake them up. "I'm not gonna think I'm a star," he promises, "I've got my feet on the earth, I do!"

"I know," breathes the Inspector, and his face looks beyond age when his eyes fall shut. "And that is why you must live, while the dreamers walk ahead." He coughs, squeezes Gavroche's hand, and speaks once more. "May I follow them now, all the dreaming ones?"

"Yes," Gavroche promises, tears rising in his eyes, and he blinks them angrily away. "Absolutely; they're probably all waiting for you."

"I pray they might," the old man sighs, and he sounds so very tired. "I hope..."

"Say hello to Enjolras for me," he manages, but the answer never comes. Now Gavroche does not try stop his tears. It is better to cry them here, alone, before he goes to rouse the others. And he doesn't think the Inspector will tattle any longer, for all that he remained an old copper to the end.

**/End**

* * *

Thank you for reading this far! Comments, feedbacks and questions are all very welcomed.

I will be posting a small after-(after)-life sequel soon and might write some small side-stories, but this is the end of this tale.


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